Public schoolboy who attacked two sleeping students with hammer detained for life

Devon and Cornwall Police descended on the school in the early hours of June 9, 2023, to reports of a serious assault.

The then-16-year-old, the court found, used weapons he had collected to prepare for a zombie apocalypse to attack his schoolmates and housemaster.

Today, at Exeter Crown Court, a judge detained the youth for life with a minimum term of 12 years after finding him guilty of attempted murder earlier this year.

The youth was wearing just his boxer shorts during the attack and though he admitted to assaulting the trio, claimed he was sleepwalking.

The boy - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - had armed himself with three claw hammers and waited for the two boys to be asleep before attacking them.

The students had been asleep in cabin-style beds in one of the £47,775-per-year school's boarding houses when the 16-year-old got up and attacked them shortly before 1am on June 9 last year.

Housemaster Henry Roffe-Silvester, who was asleep in his own quarters, was woken up by noises coming from the boarding house and went to investigate.

When he entered the bedroom where the attack had happened, he saw a silhouette of a figure standing in the room, who then turned towards him and repeatedly struck him over the head six times with a hammer.

Another student heard Roffe-Silvester shouting and swearing as he fled the bedroom and dialled 999, thinking there was an intruder at the school.

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The two boys were discovered in their beds a few minutes later having suffered skull fractures, as well as injuries to their ribs, spleen, a punctured lung and internal bleeding.

Both victims are now forced to live with the "long-term consequences" of the attack - but have no memory of the incident.

The boy had maintained he was sleepwalking at the time of the attacks, meaning he would be not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity, but the Exeter court's jury found him guilty of three counts of attempted murder.

During the trial, James Dawes KC, prosecuting, told jurors: "The investigation has uncovered an obsession that the defendant had with one of the boys, an obsession with hammers as weapons, and an obsession with killing and killers and the killing of children.

"He had motive, that he had planned something like this, thought about it in advance, and he was awake. He was using his iPad right up to the moment before the attack.

"Roffe-Silvester said he thought the defendant appeared to be 'on a mission' and afterwards his face and body relaxed, and he was calm and slumped on his feet, squatting against the wall."

However, one expert told the jury the boy would have been sleepwalking - Dr Mark Pressman called the attack on the teacher "a textbook example of sleepwalking violence", adding that there were no features in the case inconsistent with sleepwalking.

The boy's relatives also told the court how there had been a history of sleepwalking in their family.

But another expert, Dr John O'Reilly, said he did not believe the boy was asleep, saying a sleepwalker does not initiate violence because it is triggered by noise or touch.

Giving evidence, the boy said he kept two hammers by his bed "for protection" from the "zombie apocalypse", adding: "I feel very terribly sorry for all three individuals because of what I did to them... I feel very sorry for everyone, the families and themselves."

After the sentencing, Detective Inspector Dave Egan said: "This was an unprovoked attack on two schoolboys as they slept in their beds. The assaults were both brutal and savage and I have no doubt that his intent was to kill.

"Our detectives worked tirelessly to prove that the offender had indeed been fully conscious when committing this horrendous attack, which had been months in the planning."

The families of the two boys attacked expressed their gratitude to the school community, medical staff, and the "professional and compassionate" police and prosecution team.

One victim's family said: "Their thoroughness and attention to detail in the investigation has been truly impressive. We are indebted to everyone involved."