Teenager Convicted of Wounding Teacher with Kitchen Knife

A schoolboy has been acquitted of attempted murder but convicted of wounding with intent, after stabbing his teacher in the head at a school in Wales.

The teenager reportedly attacked Vicki Williams at Milford Haven Comprehensive School in Pembrokeshire in February.

He was 15 at the time of the offence and cannot be named for legal reasons.

A jury at Swansea Crown Court reached a majority verdict of 11 to one to convict the boy, now 16, of wounding with intent, following just over four hours of deliberation on Monday.

The court had heard that the pupil deliberately stabbed Mrs Williams, a history teacher, after asking her to check his schoolwork.

He approached her desk on the afternoon of 5 February, and Williams told the jury "alarm bells" began to ring when he shut the classroom door, telling her it was cold.

Jurors were told the student then pulled a large kitchen knife from his bag and struck her in the head.

A "violent struggle" followed, during which Williams attempted to wrestle the knife from him, before he fled the school.

Earlier in the trial, the boy told the court that Williams had spotted the knife and "tried to grab it" from him, and that he had "accidentally assaulted her" during the resulting struggle.

He had already pleaded guilty to possessing a kitchen knife on school premises.

Williams was taken to hospital in Haverfordwest, where she was found to have a wound to her scalp, scratches on her back and minor cuts to her hands.

She told the jury she believed she was dying during the incident, which prosecutors described as a "sustained attack" that would likely have continued had she not managed to disarm him.

Matthew Roberts KC, defending, had earlier suggested the student brought the knife into school to "show off" to other boys.

"There was no recorded history of conflict between [the student] and Vicki Williams. There is no evidence of any animosity or any ill feeling between them at all," Roberts told the court.

Jurors were shown CCTV footage of the teenager leaving the school grounds before going to his grandmother's home, where he told her: "Something went in my head, nan."

In his closing speech last week, prosecutor Christopher Rees KC said: "He knows the truth about what he did, he just doesn't have, I'm afraid, the courage or the remorse to tell anyone about it. He brought the knife into school because he planned to attack the teacher.

"Why Vicki Williams? Well, she was, at quarter past three, a lone female teacher, she was an easy target."

The boy is due to be sentenced on 3 September, according to reports.