Blundell’s student who attacked students and teachers with a claw hammer has been jailed

A public school student who attacked two students and a teacher with claw hammers while they slept at a Devon boarding school has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 12 years.

The 16-year-old had claimed he was sleepwalking and “on a mission” to protect himself from a zombie apocalypse when he carried out his attack.

Jurors at Exeter Crown Court found him guilty of attempted murder after he admitted attacking the two boys and the caretaker at Blundell’s School in Tiverton.

The court heard the teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had waited for the two boys to sleep in their hut beds before attacking them just before 1am on June 9 last year.

Caretaker Henry Roffe-Silvester was woken up by the noises coming from the guesthouse and went to investigate when he saw a silhouette of a figure standing in the bedroom.

The student turned towards him and hit him repeatedly on the head with a hammer before managing to escape and dial 999, believing there was an intruder.

The two victims were discovered a few minutes later with skull fractures as well as injuries to their ribs, spleen, a punctured lung and internal bleeding.

Both have no memory of the incident and are now living with the “long-term consequences” of the attack, while Mr Roffe-Silvester suffered six blows to the head.

During the trial, James Dawes KC, prosecuting, told the jury: “The investigation has uncovered an obsession on the part of the defendant with one of the boys, an obsession with hammers as weapons and an obsession with killing and murder and the killing of children.”

“He had a motive, that he had planned something like this, thought about it in advance, and he was awake.

“He was using his iPad up until the moment before the attack.”

The teenager claimed he was sleepwalking at the time of the attacks – meaning he would not have been guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity.

Relatives of the defendant also told the court of a history of sleepwalking in their family.

When he testified, the boy told jurors he remembered falling asleep before the attack and then seeing the dormitory covered in blood.

“I knew something really bad had happened and everyone was looking at me,” he said.

“I didn’t remember doing anything, so the only sensible thought I had was that I was sleepwalking.”

He said he kept two hammers next to his bed “for protection” from the “zombie apocalypse.”

The court also heard the boy was being blackmailed by an online user, which was “on his mind every second”.