A judge in western England sentenced a teenager who stabbed a teacher in a school corridor to 14 months in youth detention on Thursday, amid growing alarm in the UK over rising knife crime.
The 15-year-old boy, who cannot be named because he is under the age of 18, previously admitted to attempting to unlawfully and deliberately hurt the maths teacher at Tewkesbury Academy in Gloucestershire.
He had also earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing a bladed article.
His sentence follows a fatal knife attack on a 15-year-old girl in south London on Wednesday.
The child from Tewkesbury concealed his face and wore a hooded top after bringing a kitchen knife with a six-inch (15-centimetre) blade to school from his home, according to Bristol Magistrates’ Court.
He called 911 minutes before the attack to alert them that a teacher at the school would be stabbed.
District Judge Lynne Matthews imposed a 14-month detention and training order on the offender, telling him he had behaved with intent.
“Nothing strikes me about it that was impulsive,” she said.
Matthews ruled that he serve half of his sentence in prison and the other half at home working with the area’s child offending team.
The teacher was released from the hospital the same day he was attacked and was described as “recovering well.”
‘Shattered’
Police in London were interviewing a 17-year-old boy on Thursday about an attack on a girl on her way to school the day before, with the victim identified as Elianne Andam by the Metropolitan Police.
She was stabbed in the neck shortly after coming off a bus in Croydon, south London, as bystanders rushed to seek aid.
A spokeswoman for her family said their hearts were “broken by the senseless death” in a statement posted through the force.
“Elianne was the light of our lives,” the statement added. “She was only 15, and had her whole life ahead of her, with hopes and dreams for the future.
“All those dreams have now been shattered. Our lives have fallen apart, along with that of our wider family,” it said.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the death “absolutely shocking” on Thursday.
Police said they were reviewing security camera footage from the attack site and had spoken with several witnesses.
In the year to March 2023, 99 persons under the age of 25 were killed in England and Wales with a knife or sharp object, according to government records. Thirteen of those killed were under the age of sixteen.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the deaths were among 50,000 stabbing events in the year to March 2023, a 5% increase over the previous year and a 75% increase over a decade before.