Boy who attacked sleeping children at Blundell’s private school with hammer guilty of attempted murder

A boy has been found guilty of attempted murder after attacking two sleeping students and a teacher with hammers in a devastating rampage at a private school in the middle of the night.

The 16-year-old was wearing only his boxer shorts when he bludgeoned the two boys and a headteacher at Blundell’s School in Tiverton, Devon. The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had claimed he was sleepwalking during the horrific incident on June 9 last year and had kept the weapons in his room for fear of a “zombie apocalypse”.

After a trial lasting more than a month at Exeter Crown Court, a jury convicted the now 17-year-old boy on Friday.

Prosecutor James Dawes KC had described to the court how the boy climbed up to his victims, who were sleeping in hut beds, and then hit them on the head, arms and back with a hammer.

“These blows have shattered their skulls,” said Mr Dawes.

After the caretaker, Henry Roffe-Silvester, was awakened by the noise, he went into the bedroom before he too was hit on the head with a hammer.

“Mr Roffe-Silvester retreated down the corridor while the defendant repeatedly struck him in the face and head with the hammer,” said Mr Dawes.

A paramedic who responded to the attack described the bedroom as a scene from a horror movie.

A colleague added: “I served in Iraq and have never seen such a carnage, with blood all over the desks, the walls and the beds.”

Both boys attacked suffered broken bones and are living with the “long-term effects” of the attack, Mr Dawes said, but have no memory of the incident.

The defendant, who did not respond to questions during police interviews, told the jury that he was neither conscious nor awake at the time of the attack.

However, the jury heard that the boy had been listening to music on Spotify shortly before the attacks.

Concluding his prosecution, Mr Dawes said a police investigation had revealed an obsession by the defendant with hammers and one of the boys.

“It may not be palatable and it may not make much sense, but it seems to be an obsession he was pursuing,” he said.

At Blundell’s School, which opened in 1604, parents pay up to £30,000 in fees for full-board students. Its former pupils include Archibald V. Hill, who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and helped rescue thousands of academics from Nazi-ruled Europe.

On Friday, trial judge Mrs Justice Cutts said she would adjourn sentencing to prepare pre-sentence reports, including a psychiatric report, and would deliver judgment on October 18.

“I do not intend to make a judgment today, further reports are required,” she said. “I would like a psychiatric report. That must be a court-ordered report.”

“I can say that inquiries were made to find someone who could write a report. Due to the age of the accused, this was not easy.”

This is a breaking story – more to follow