Schoolboy guilty of attempted murder after hammer attack on sleeping students

21 June 2024 , 13:27

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Blundell's is an exclusive private school (Image: PA)

A public schoolboy who attacked two sleeping students and a teacher with hammers at Blundells School in Tiverton, Devon, has been found guilty at Exeter Crown Court of attempted murder.

The 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of three counts of attempted murder in connection with the incident at Blundell’s School in Tiverton, Devon, in June last year.

During the two-month trial Exeter Crown Court heard the boy was wearing just his boxer shorts and was “on a mission” to protect himself from a zombie apocalypse when he carried out the attack.

The teenager claimed he was sleepwalking when he assaulted the two boys and housemaster Henry Roffe-Silvester. The boy is accused of arming himself with three claw hammers and waiting for the two boys to be asleep before attacking them.

Mr Roffe-Silvester, who was asleep in his own quarters, was woken by noises coming from the boarding house and went to investigate. When he entered the bedroom where the alleged attack had happened, he saw a silhouetted figure standing in the room who turned towards him and repeatedly struck him over the head with a hammer.

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Another student heard Mr Roffe-Silvester’s shouts and swearing as he fled the bedroom and dialled 999 – believing there was an intruder. Both boys suffered skull fractures, as well as injuries to their ribs, spleen, a punctured lung and internal bleeding.

Mr Roffe-Silvester suffered six blows to his head. The attacker, now aged 17, accepted carrying out the attacks in court but claimed he was sleepwalking. He told the jury he had no recollection of the attacks and remembers falling asleep on the evening of June 8 and then seeing the room covered in blood.

“I remember being in the room. The room was covered in blood. What I could see was blood. I didn’t hear anything,” he told the court. I remember walking out to the corridor.”

He added: “I knew something really bad had gone on and everyone was looking towards me. I didn’t remember doing anything so the only rational thing I was thinking was that I was sleepwalking.”

Matt Clemenson