‘More communication’ needed to prevent stabbings

Local TV

An inquest into the stabbing of two teachers by a 13 year old pupil has found clear signs of problems leading to the events, which could have been prevented with the right intervention.

Transcript

00:01In April last year, a 13-year-old stabbed two teachers at a school in Ammonford.

00:06It was a shocking story with the two teachers talking of their trauma after the incident,

00:10and the girl has since been placed under detention for 15 years for attempted murder.

00:15As is the case with any incident regarding children,

00:18agencies are involved to try and pinpoint what happened

00:21and what went wrong for the girl to have been allowed to have taken the action she did.

00:25Gladys Rhodes-White, who authored the report after the inquest into the events,

00:30says that one of the main issues was a lack of cross-communication between relevant authorities

00:35to prevent it from taking place.

00:37Like many child review reports before it, a key theme in this review

00:44was looking at the information that different agencies held,

00:49that the family had and the young person themselves,

00:54and the lack of ability at different points to join all that information up,

01:02so to put all the pieces of the jigsaw together,

01:06to get a really clear, holistic picture of the young person, her needs and her risks.

01:15The girl had told fellow pupils that she had a knife on her in school,

01:18and while Gladys says no blame should be put on the pupils themselves,

01:21given the brevity of the situation, more should have been done to educate those involved

01:25to understand the possible serious outcomes.

01:28It is so worrying that she had had conversations with friends that day

01:35and shared that she had a weapon and might use it that day and they didn't say anything.

01:43I don't want to put any onus of blame or guilt on them,

01:48but what I do want to do through the recommendations is say,

01:53let's do much more awareness raising with our young people about,

01:58you know, the dangers of weapons carrying them and that for them and their friends,

02:05if they feel that that's an option, be aware of the consequences,

02:11because somebody may use it, so don't see it as a hollow threat.

02:16Notably, the girl was considered for the anti-extremist scheme Prevent,

02:20which could have intervened and possibly prevented the event from taking place.

02:24We did explore the issue around whether her behaviours met the threshold for a prevent referral

02:34and it was considered appropriately and it was felt she didn't meet that threshold.

02:41What was clear was that there were concerns and whilst it may not have met the need

02:48for that level of intervention clearly, it did need further exploration.

02:54They talked about offering targeted youth support.

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