Boy, 15, told teacher ‘as if anybody's going to stab me' hours before death

Telegraph

a day ago

A schoolboy told a teacher 'as if anybody's going to stab me' hours before he was knifed to death in his school.
Claire Staniforth was giving evidence at the trial of a 15-year-old boy accused of murdering Harvey Willgoose, also 15, at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, on Feb 3 2025.
Ms Staniforth said Harvey came to see her that morning and was chatting about his grandparents going on holiday, before asking about a lockdown incident in the school five days before.
She told Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday: 'He said he wasn't going to be coming into school because he'd heard there had been a knife.'
The teacher explained that there had been rumours on social media of a knife being involved in an incident on Jan 29 but police had not found a weapon.
Ms Staniforth said: 'My reply to Harvey was that I wouldn't have been at work if somebody had had a knife.
'He said something about being stabbed and put his hands up and said 'as if anyone's going to stab me'.'
The teacher said Harvey later spoke to her on the phone from a room where he was working, just before lunch, calling her his 'bestie' and telling her he had been talking to a girl from another school.
She said he was laughing as he said: 'Don't tell her anything about me.'
Ms Staniforth said she told him he could come and have his lunch with her 'but he never arrived'.
She had grabbed something to eat from the dining hall and had gone back to her office when she was told that Harvey had been stabbed.
She said she sprinted to where it had happened. 'I told him I was there,' she said.
Ms Staniforth said had helped Harvey with attendance problems.
'When he did attend school he would come to see me and make sure I was OK, and I'd make sure he was OK,' she said.
'He made me laugh – a bit cheeky sometimes, but he would never overstep the boundaries.'
The jury have seen CCTV footage of the moments when Harvey was stabbed.
The defendant has admitted manslaughter but denies murder. He has also admitted possession of a knife on school premises.
Five days before Harvey was stabbed, two members of staff physically intervened in a dispute between two other students. The defendant had to be restrained as he tried to get involved.
He claimed that one boy had a knife and the school was put into lockdown, although the police never found a weapon.
Ms Staniforth said she had spoken to the defendant just before it happened after she became suspicious of a group of students.
She said the teenager told her there had been 'something in the library' and another student had called him 'a p---- and a bitch'.
Ms Staniforth said the defendant told her that the other boy had his hands in his pockets and said to him: 'What have you got in there, do you want me to come and take it off you and I'll kill you with it?'
Earlier this week, Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, defending, said: '[The defendant] did not set out to kill or seriously hurt anyone.
'The defence say [the defendant's] actions that day were the end result of a long period of bullying, poor treatment and violence, things that built one upon another until he lost control and did tragically what we've all seen.'