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Murder in school

36 replies

hmb · 27/07/2004 15:46

Now that Alan Pennell has been found guilty of the murder of Luke Walmsley, it has been mentioned that he has had two previous court cases, one for violence to a policeman and nother for punching another student in the face three times.

This boy has a tragic background as his mother was killed in a drunk druving accident. However the question has to be asked, should children like this be educated in mainstream schools?

I have no training in how to defend myself, or the children in my care from this sort of violent student. Shouldn't kids like this be in schools where they can be correctly monitored, keeping themselves and everyone else safe?

Bring back Approved Schools for violent young offenders IMHO

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Janh · 27/07/2004 18:41

But hmb, don't you wish the school and his family and whoever else was involved with him could have made a difference, that when his mother died they had done things differently and not have let it get so out of hand?

Obviously Luke was a lovely boy, and this whole case is desperately sad for everyone involved. But I actually find myself feeling sorry for Alan Pennell - it sounds (from the little that has been allowed in the press so far) as if he has had a horrible life - I know that's no excuse for what he did but if his violent tendencies and desperate insecurity could have been picked up and monitored and dealt with earlier, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

Hearing his 3 wishes - for his mother not to be dead, for him to be able to go back to before this happened, and he couldn't think of a 3rd - makes me want to weep for the boy he could have been.

Of course society needs to be protected from violent louts but when and how do you pick them out and lock them up?

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boudicca · 27/07/2004 18:48

I have to say,whilst deploring what Alan Pennell did,I do find it hard to understand why he got life and the guy that deliberately ran over a policeman 'only' got 15 years.Although the PC wasn't killed surely the sheer wickedness shown by this adult should have resulted in a much longer sentance.

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hmb · 27/07/2004 18:53

Yes, I very much wish the school etc could have made a difference, but the stark and very worrying fact is that the system as it stands, with inclusion at all costs, is failing children like this.

I heared today the head say that there had been no indication that he was going to do this sort of thing. Naturaly the HT knows a hell of a lot more about this case than any of us. However I have also read that this boy punched another child in the face three times. And this isn't enought to get him refered to a unit that will help him to deal with his probelms?

I'm not saying this boy needs to be locked away to punish him. I'm saying that boys like him need to be removed from the normal school system to a secure and safe place where their needs can be met. And a second benefit will be that all the other children will be safer.

This boy will have been in classes of (potentialy) up to 30 kids. How can the staff keep him, and everyone else safe, in that situation? While supervising him (and remember he also asaulted a policeman) how will the staff have time to teach anyone anything?

As I said I have no training in how to deal with a child like this. None. How safe does that make everyone in my class (including the potential perpetrator)? No very.

The reality of the situation is that this boy will probably have been in 'bottom sets'. the other children in those classes may well have SEN. How well are their suited , emotionaly, to deal with this sort of boy? How well will the teacher be avle to address their special needs?

EBD children need special provision. Not dumping grounds, but places where their special needs can be met.

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Rowlers · 27/07/2004 18:55

I agree with you Janh - it's often the case that violent offenders have had a particularly rough time and so do deserve our pity. However, it's just too easy to blame one's actions on a "tough" upbringing. Why did he have a knife with him? Why did he have to kill the other boy? I just can't get my head round it! As to him being in mainstream schooling, not sure you can always tell which ones will offend!

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Rowlers · 27/07/2004 19:02

Good points hmb but how many "punchy" boys go on to knife fellow pupils? Some schools would be empty if all such pupils were removed!

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Jimjams · 27/07/2004 19:04

EBD are the least well served of the SN community I think (along with HFA maybe who often get dumped- very inappropriately - with EBD).

It's difficult to guess how much his background contributed-I certainly don't think a m/s school is able to be a substitute for a dead mother - or a special school come to that.

So yes I guess I think special arrangements should be made ofr EBD- but I don't think there's much that's any god out there are the moment. So not sure what the answer is.

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hmb · 27/07/2004 19:17

I don't know how many 'punchy' boys go onto knife someone. But for that matter how happy would any of us be if our child had been punched by another in school and then had to spend the rest of their school life in the same school as that kid? A prime example from my form. One lad hit and broke the jaw of another, 7 days exclusion and is back in school in the same form as the victim! How crazy is that! How satisfactory is that.

To be honest Jimjams I was thinking about HFA kids when I asked how well SEN kids can cope with EBD kids. I have far too many classes where there are HFA children put in with EBD kids. THose least able to cope with the behaviour of others are the ones that have to do it most often.

How would any mainstream school have been able to cope with the needs of that boy? A boy who's response to a slur on his football club is to hold a knife to someone's throat? A child like that needs profesional psychatric care, not being dumped into classes that they can't cope with.

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hmb · 27/07/2004 19:19

My wish list would be to have an EBD unot attached to each mainstream school, staffed by teachers treained in working with ebd kids/councellors etc. The kids could then have 'sanctuary' and could be eased back into mainstream school by stages, keeping them out of flashpoint situations like break and lunchtime for example.

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Janh · 27/07/2004 19:19

EBD and HFA for the acronym list, please?

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Freckle · 27/07/2004 19:20

It's not true to say that there was no warning of what this child was going to do. I read a report where he had been boasting that he was going to stab Luke, so clearly he was carrying that knife with a specific purpose.

I don't know what the answer is. At which point do you decide that a young life is going out of control? Does anyone know what support he was offered when his mother was killed? Is there a father on the scene? What was his role in his child's upbringing?

So many questions. There are lots of children out there with difficult and tragic backgrounds, but how many of them go on to murder fellow pupils?

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hmb · 27/07/2004 19:23

Sorry, Emotional Behavioural Disorder (a catch all term for people statemented for behavioural prolems rather than learning problems). HFA High Functioning Autism.

The boy went to live with the Father after the mother died.

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hmb · 27/07/2004 19:28

Jimjams is right EBD tends to be very badly coped with. I've had kids who are given a target on their Individual Education Plans of 'Not to hit anyone', but nothing is done to help them reach that need. You are warned that you should not be confrontational with some kids and not to 'back them into a corner' as it will provoke them. That is all good advice but what will happen to that child when they grow up and some one confronts them in a pub? Thei will get into a fight. We are not dealing with the probelms that these kids have, helping them to learn to control themselves, we are skirting the issues until they leave or are expelled and thein they become the police's probelm.

And why is it OK for a child to punch another in a classroom? If they did it on the street it would be abh! Kids are led to believe that their actions have no consequences, and that is as much at the root of this probelm as the boy's tragic background.

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Rowlers · 27/07/2004 19:31

There was a scheme in recent years to have just such units in schools. PRU something or other they were called (sorry, my memory is still appalling) We had one in ours and there was a lot of anticipation that this would solve all our EBD problems. However, as is often the case, the unit in reality didn't live up to expectations. It was staffed by IN (Individual needs) and as these types of pupils often require one on one attention, whenever pupils were referred to the unit, staff were told that there was no room or IN staff were involved in exams etc etc. School budgets are the problem - they are so tight these days that schools just can't afford such units. Another point on this - the pupils are still on school site and therefore are mixing with their classmates at break and lunch time anyway - it wouldn't take them far enough away from potential victims.

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Janh · 27/07/2004 19:31

Thanks for translations, hmb!

Freckle, I don't think there was any advance warning, it sounds as if it all blew up very fast. He brought the knife in, threatened the other kid (football team one) the same day (?) and then stabbed Luke - it sounds as if he "had to" to save face.

And it's claimed Luke had said things about his mother - whether he did, and what the things are supposed to have been, I haven't heard. With a disturbed, damaged and inadequate kid like this, who was already desperately jealous of Luke's popularity and thought he was going to steal his girlfriend, you can see with hindsight that he could lose control, but nobody would have believed he would actually do it until he did.

Luke's parents had been concerned about bullying of Luke that term but even they can't have thought this might happen...it's just tragic.

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hmb · 27/07/2004 19:34

That was very interesting about the PRU.....classic case of underfunding by the sound of it.

So there will be a call for metal detectors and the money might be found for them, but not for the help these kids need to learn how to behave! Crazy, sad, mixed up world.

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luckymum · 27/07/2004 19:35

That happened to my son hmb....he was punched in the face by another boy when in year 7, so hard that my son lost a tooth. The boy did 5 days in the isolation unit (not even suspended) and then back into class as usual. My son wasn't the first he'd assaulted (because thats what it is)and won't be the last I'm sure.

My thoughts are with Luke's family.

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hmb · 27/07/2004 19:38

The trouble is, Luckymum is that it isn't treated as an asault, and that send the worst possible message, that things that happen in school are somehow 'not real'. If a stranger had punched your child on the street then the police would have been involved, why is it different in a school?

Some of the kids I teach are bloody enormous 6 foot lads, what an I to do if one of them punches me? Or one of the other kids in the school?

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Rowlers · 27/07/2004 19:44

It has become incredibly hard for schools to discipline children effectively for many many reasons. Firstly, it never ceases to amaze me how many parents simply won't accept that their child has done anything wrong. They will fight any punishment a school deems fit to hand out. What message does this send the child??!? Secondly, schools need a vast amount of evidence of what has been done to "help" a pupil who has been having problems of this type in school before they can remove them. Parents have the right to appeal against exclusions and often will appeal, evenb when a fresh start for their child would be of great benefit to them. It's all this parental choice crap. LEAs are often also on the parents side for some reason. Probably funding again. We had one pupil who was completely antisocial. We did EVERYTHING possible but he was truly wild (Outside of school he got up to all sorts of things including setting a tramp on fire). His parents simply refused to accept that his behaviour was a sbad is it was and we had to keep him for almost 3 years beofre they finally lost all appeals. He went to another local school but lasted a very short time there. I don't think he even goes to school now. What can you do?

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hmb · 27/07/2004 19:49

We had a girl who was out of control, parents refuse to admit that there was any probelm, school was 'picking on her' etc. Right up to the point that the kids was help ovenight in the police station. Then it was all, 'why was nothing done'

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Rowlers · 27/07/2004 19:51

Parents eh? shoot them all!

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Janh · 27/07/2004 20:09

From the BBC news website:

Pennell had earlier fallen out with Luke following the break-up of a brief relationship with Luke's 12-year-old sister.

Pennell began boasting that he would kill the younger boy. He appeared jealous of Luke, who was a popular sportsman with a happy family background.

Pennell's mother had been tragically killed in a car crash, along with her boyfriend, when the boy was just four.

With his father often away working as a lorry driver, Nottingham Crown Court heard that Pennell was often left to his own devices and spent much of his youth getting drunk and hanging around with a succession of girlfriends.

Pennell told the court that he had felt "gutted" when he heard Luke had died from the stabbing, adding that he knew what it felt like to lose someone because of the death of his mother.

Threats

Friends who had heard Pennell's threats to kill Luke had believed they were empty.

On the day of the killing, they told him to put his knife away when he began twirling it round his fingers outside a classroom.

But as the murderer's best friend told the court: "Once he gets it into his head that he's going to do something you can't stop him.

"There are playground fights aren't there, but I didn't think anything like that would happen."

Witnesses said the stabbing of Luke Walmsley was sudden and had appeared little more than a punch.

But the knife punctured the 14-year-old's heart and he had no chance of survival, despite attempts at the scene by paramedics to resuscitate him.

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hmb · 27/07/2004 20:14

However sad his upbringing the boy stabbed another. He did so with enough force to push the blade 7 inches into the lad's chest. He did so with so much force that the hilt of the blade brused the skin. And when he reailed the magnitude of what he did his response was to say ' he walked into the blade'. ie he lied to try to save gis skin. These are not the normal responses or a normal adolecent. These are the actions of a child in need of psychatric help.

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Jimjams · 27/07/2004 20:17

Your unit idea sounds good hmb but bet it wouldn't work because a) it would be underfunded and b) ime of autism units very little attempt is made at the integration into mainstream bit. The autism unit we turned down was pretty much totally seperate from the school (and was attached to a school with a very bad reputation in a very dodgy area- where frankly they have enough to deal with without trying to mix a bunch of autistic kids in as well) I suspect `"better" (for which read middle class) schools would be up in arms though is someone tried to attach a unit (whether for autism or EBD) to them. We turned it down because of the underfunding though- the necessary staff ratios just weren't there and I bet any EBD unit would be the same.

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hmb · 27/07/2004 20:21

Lack of funding is always at the root of the probelm

for that matter if I had, say classes of 12-14 with a classroom assistant I could teach most of the kids I have come across, and could actually teach them something. But the funding isn't there for that sort of set up either.

The crazy, dangerous thing is that we are not helping to get these ebd kids to learn how to control themselves. It is all well an good understanding why they have problems but naff all good unless we do something about it. It we don't they will be walking timebombs when they leave school and their actions suddenly have real consequences for them and everyone else.

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MeanBean · 27/07/2004 20:36

And the sad thing is that it would probably cost less, long term, to have proper support for these children than to let them run wild and then lock them up for years. I've seen mentoring projects for young offenders which have turned their lives around and stopped them re-offending, so saving taxpayers thousands of pounds of police time, social services time, court time and prison costs, but for some reason nobody wants to invest in proper support. Long term, it would be an awful lot cheaper.

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