Using the excuse that he was sleepwalking, a public schoolboy from Devon was convicted of three charges of attempted murder for attacking three people at his boarding school: two sleeping housemates and a housemaster with hammers.
The assaults took place on June 9, 2023, at Tiverton, Devon’s Blundell’s School. While housemaster Henry Roffe-Silvester sustained six wounds to the head, two housemates, aged fifteen and sixteen, were left with severe injuries. The minor, who is not allowed to be identified due to legal constraints, informed the court that he was dreaming and sleepwalking at the time of the assaults. His justification for possessing the hammers was his fear of a “zombie apocalypse.”
Experts in sleep medicine, paramedics, students, instructors, police, a consultant forensic pathologist, and the defendant’s mother were all present in court. Both sides presented their cases: the defense called it “textbook sleepwalking,” while the prosecution said it was premeditated and not the result of a sleepwalk.
After a trial lasting nine weeks and nearly eight days of deliberation, the jury reached their verdict.
Guilty.
Following psychiatric reports, sentencing is scheduled for October 18th.
The youth waited for the other two lads to be sleeping before assaulting them with three claw hammers, according to the court. The defendant got on one of the bunk beds in one of the coed dorms and attacked the two students just before midnight. The sounds emanating from the dorm roused Mr. Roffe-Silvester. Upon entering the chamber where the attack had taken place, he beheld a shadowy figure standing there. The attacker immediately pivoted towards him and pounded his skull many times with a hammer.
As Mr. Roffe-Silvester sprinted out of the bedroom and dialed 999, a fellow student overheard him yelling and cursing, perhaps fearing an intruder. It took only a few minutes for the two youngsters to be found in their beds. Internal bleeding, rib fractures, spleen damage, a punctured lung, and skull fractures were among their injuries.
They are both dealing with the “long-term consequences” of the attack without any recollection of what happened.
