Pupils hid in cupboard during Sheffield teen’s fatal stabbing

A group of students at a school in Sheffield locked themselves in a cupboard and barricaded the door after a girl screamed “someone’s been stabbed”, a court has heard.

A jury in the trial of a 15-year-old boy accused of murdering Harvey Willgoose, also 15, at All Saints Catholic High School heard a pre-recorded police interview with the witness.

In the video interview, played to jurors at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday, the child told officers how he was in a detention room on 3 February when a pupil ran in and shouted “there’s blood all over”.

The defendant, who cannot be named due to his age, has admitted manslaughter and bringing a knife onto school premises, but denies murder.

In the interview seen by the jury, the boy said he and a group of other students “ran into a storage cupboard in the detention hall so we were safe, locked ourselves in and barricaded the door”.

The teenager said he did not need to be told the boy who had been stabbed was Harvey Willgoose, because the defendant “always carried a weapon and Harvey was having a bit of an argument with him”.

The witness described how Harvey and the defendant had been pushing each other at break time earlier that day, but he thought they were just “messing around”.

“I thought it was a joke,” he said.

He added that the two boys had “squared up to each other” later in the morning.

Asked about the defendant carrying weapons, the boy said: “Since he joined the school he used to carry them a lot.”

He told detectives the defendant “carried a little axe” and “different types of knives”.

“He would either show me or tell me to feel the outside of his trousers and there would be an imprint of the top of an axe or something,” he explained.

The boy told police this was a few months before the fatal incident.

In another recorded interview watched by the jury, a girl told detectives how she last saw Harvey stood covered in blood after she saw the defendant stab him.

The teenager said she thought the pair were about to fight, with the defendant saying “come on then” and Harvey replying “what you gonna do?”

She said the defendant then punched Harvey before pulling out a knife and stabbing him twice.

She told the police she thought Harvey wanted to fight back but was “in shock”.

“He couldn’t do anything. He was just holding it with his hands,” she said.

“I could see blood coming out.”

The girl said Harvey’s friends looked like they were going to help him but the defendant still had the knife and they ran inside.

She said Harvey was “covered in blood”.

The girl said: “We went inside to go and tell a teacher, but the teacher was frozen as well. She didn’t know what to do.”

She said: “People were running, screaming everywhere. It was, like, chaos.”

The trial has also heard about previous incidents in the school involving the defendant, including one five days before Harvey’s death which led to the school going into lockdown.

According to prosecutors, two members of staff physically intervened in a dispute between two other students, and the defendant had to be restrained as he tried to get involved.

The jury has been told it was the defendant’s claim that one boy had a knife that led the school to go into lockdown, although the police who responded never found a weapon.

The trial continues.