16-year-old boy sentenced to life imprisonment for murder of his teacher, Ann Maguire
A 16-year-old boy who told a friend a friend on Facebook he planned to brutally kill his teacher, Ann Maguire and spend the rest of his life in jail has just been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder of same teacher.
According to the Telegraph, UK;
Will Cornick posted a message on the social network saying Mrs Maguire “deserves more than death, more than pain and more than anything that we can understand”.
Two months later, in April this year, he stabbed the 61-year-old Spanish teacher as she taught a class at Corpus Christi Catholic College, in Leeds.
Cornick took a bottle of whisky with him to school so he could celebrate the murder, and told a psychiatrist he decided to carry out the murder in school because he “wanted to get caught”.
The boy, who was 15 at the time, admitted murder when he appeared at Leeds Crown Court today. His anonymity was protected by a court order because of his age, but the restrictions were lifted after sentencing.
Paul Greaney QC, prosecuting, told the court that the boy’s parents were “decent people and responsible parents” and were “at a loss” to understand their son’s “inexplicable” actions.
There had been nothing to suggest to his parents or teachers a risk of “homicidal violence” but the Cornick’s friends had noticed disturbing aspects to his personality.
Mr Greaney said: “Late on the night of Christmas Eve 2013 and into the early hours of Christmas Day, the defendant exchanged messages with a friend on Facebook.
“In those messages he spoke of ‘brutally killing’ Mrs Maguire and spending the rest of his life in jail so as not to have to worry about life or money.”
Weeks later he sent a message on Facebook which said of Mrs Maguire: “The one absolute f****** bitch that deserves more than death, more than pain and more than anything that we can understand.”
Cornick later told a psychiatrist how he planned the murder, saying: “I decided on Sunday it was going to be a knife. I thought I was just going to go to school and wait for her lesson and do it.
“I wanted to get caught. That’s why I did it in school. I wanted to be in jail.”
Mr Greaney said the boy told other pupils he was going to attack Mrs Maguire on the morning of the murder.
Cornick showed them some of them the knives he had with him.
Mr Greaney said the boy left a room next to where Mrs Maguire was teaching and winked at a fellow student before going to attack her.
There was no expression on the Cornick’s face as he stabbed her, one pupil said, according to the prosecutor.
The prosecutor said: “It is important that we should record that it is clear from the evidence that the parents of (the boy) are decent people and responsible parents.
“They are at a loss to understand how and why their son has turned out as he has and they have co-operated fully with the police and with the prosecution.
“It follows that this is not one of those cases in which a defendant’s actions may find a degree of explanation in his family circumstances.
“On the contrary, (the boy’s) family life was marked by love and support.”