A 15-year-old schoolboy was fatally stabbed in the heart by a hunting knife-wielding fellow pupils during a lunch break spat, a jury heard. Harvey Willgoose, died after he was stabbed at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield by the 15-year-old student on February 3, Sheffield Crown Court was told.
Richard Thyne KC, prosecuting, told a jury: “It was just five minutes into the school lunch break, when Harvey Willgoose was stabbed to death. It was quarter past 12 in the afternoon on Monday February 3 this year.
“Harvey was standing in the courtyard at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield when a knife was thrust into his chest, penetrating his heart.
“In less than a minute he had collapsed onto the ground, where he lost consciousness and died.
“He was 15 years old.”
Opening the case for the prosecution, Mr Thyne said: “The stab wound that killed Harvey was inflicted with such force that the knife cut the bone of one of his ribs.
“The knife used to cause that wound was a hunting knife with a 13cm, serrated-edged blade.”
Mr Thyne told jurors that the defendant “admits that he stabbed Harvey causing his death”.
He said: “He also admits that the stabbing was not carried out in lawful self-defence.”
The jury has heard that the defendant has admitted Harvey’s manslaughter, but denies murdering him.
The boy, who cannot be named, has also admitted possession of a knife on school premises.
The defendant sat in the glass-fronted dock, wearing a white shirt with no tie, as Mr Thyne outlined the case against him.
He was flanked by a number of adults, including an intermediary.
Mr Thyne said the two boys had appeared to be “on good terms” until an incident on Wednesday January 29 – five days before the stabbing – when two members of staff physically intervened in a dispute between two other students.
The prosecutor said Harvey was not in school on that day but CCTV showed that the defendant tried to get involved and “had to be physically restrained and removed by staff”.
He told the jury that the school went into lockdown after the defendant said he had seen one of the two boys with a knife, but the police who attended did not find a weapon.
The prosecutor said the defendant did not go to school the following two days and a relative contacted the school to say he was “scared of going to school because of the lockdown”.
He said that Harvey was also not in school and sent a text message to his dad saying “am not going in that school while people have knives”.
Mr Thyne said this incident led to Harvey and the defendant falling out in a Snapchat group, with each siding with one of the boys involved in the initial dispute, who had been suspended.
He told the jury that one witness will tell them that Harvey was saying things like “why would you start on my friend” and the defendant was saying “if you want to have a problem we can have a problem”.
He said that in one message on Saturday February 1, Harvey sent the defendant his address, telling him that if he had a problem “you got my Addy I’ll deal with it simple”.
Mr Thyne said that, on the morning of the fatal incident, the defendant was spoken to by a teacher who reassured him that the police had found no knife after the incident the previous week.
He said the defendant assured that teacher he did not have with him “anything he shouldn’t – such as a weapon”.
The court was played CCTV footage of interactions between Harvey and the defendant in school corridors on the morning of the fatal incident.
Describing one incident, Mr Thyne said: “The prosecution say that when you watch that CCTV you may think that (the defendant) is physically pushing Harvey at times, and you may want to ask yourselves if (the defendant) appears to be trying to provoke Harvey into reacting.”
Turning to another of the clips, Mr Thyne said that another pupil describes them pushing each other and saying “come on”.
He said this boy “thought it was just banter and that they were joking around”.
The trail continues
