Girl, 14, who stabbed two teachers and pupil handed 15-year sentence for attempted murder
28 April 2025, 14:27
A 14-year-old girl has been handed a 15-year sentence for the attempted murder of two teachers and a pupil.
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The girl wielded a knife while shouting “I will f***ing kill you” in a spate of stabbing attacks at Amman Valley School in in Ammanford, south Wales, on April 24 last year.
Intervening teachers eventually managed to grab weapon - fishing multi-tool belonging to her father - before she was arrested.
The girl was 13 years old at the time of the incident and cannot be named for legal reasons. She will serve half of the 15 years in custody and the rest on licence.
She was found guilty of the attempted murder of murder the Fiona Elias, 48, the school’s assistant head teacher,Liz Hopkin, 53, a special needs co-ordinator, and a female year 10 pupil.
Read more: Man charged with murder after woman, 45, stabbed to death in Enfield
During the week-long trial, the court heard how the teenager took a knife to school every day and had been suspended from school earlier that term after Ms Elias discovered a knife in her bag.
In CCTV footage showed to the jury, the girl could be talking to Ms Elias and Ms Hopkin in the schoolyard before taking out the knife from her pocket and launching the vicious attack on both staff members. She later ran at a fellow pupil and stabbed her in the shoulder before the she was disarmed.
Ms Elias said in her impact statement: “I will never forget the instant I saw the tip of the blade. That image is etched on my mind and returns to me often. It’s a moment that replays itself over and over, no matter how much time passes.
“In that moment when I saw the blade all I could think was ‘this is it, my time has come."
Addressing the girl directly in court, Ms Elias told her: "Your motive was clear….you intended to kill me.“Since the incident, I have had mixed feelings about you as a person.
"As a parent, I found myself thinking about your family and how they must have felt, regardless of what you had done, you were just 13 years old, a child.
“During the court cases, you showed very little remorse, but I am not ruling out a meeting with you in the future. I need to know you have engaged with the interventions that have been put in place for you."
Liz Hopkin, who has not returned to work after the attack, told the court she felt “glad” that it was her attacked.
“I have spent my whole career support young people in crisis… it was luck that put me outside that break, where I was needed most.” She said.
“I was sure I was going to die when you stabbed me multiple times I believe I saved us both that day. You are standing here convicted of one of the most serious crimes, but you are not a murder, because I stopped you”.
She added that the "thought of returning to a career I love fills me with a level of anxiety and dread I never thought possible.”
The defendant was due to be in Ms Hopkin’s husband’s maths class at the time of the attack.
“Despite what you did, and despite what you may think, I worry about your future," she told her attacker from the witness stand.
“I don’t want the events of that day to define you. I don’t want you to be punished forever. “I hope you find a way forward and find strength to become someone who looks back on this moment as a turning point, and not the end,” she added.
Huw Rogers, deputy chief prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service in Wales, said: ”This was a very serious incident, which caused a great deal of distress to the victims, staff and pupils and the wider community.
“These sorts of incidents are fortunately rare, but that makes them all the more surprising and distressing when they happen.
“In this case, the defendant denied she intended to kill the two teachers and the pupil that she stabbed. The Crown Prosecution Service was able to present strong evidence that she had intended to kill, and I’m pleased that the jury agreed and was sure of her guilt.”
