Teacher feared she was dying in school knife attack trial

Vicki Williams told a jury she feared she was dying after a pupil launched at her with a large kitchen knife and stabbed her in the head inside Milford Haven Comprehensive School in Pembrokeshire. The teacher said: "I'm dying, I'm not going to see my daughter again." Her evidence turned a criminal case into a stark account of how quickly an ordinary school day became a fight for survival.

At Sheffield Crown Court, the boy accused of the attack cannot be named for legal reasons. He was 15 at the time of the alleged assault on February 5 and is now 16. He has previously denied attempting to murder Williams, a charge that puts the school stabbing under one of the most serious categories in criminal law.

The court heard that the pupil followed Williams into a classroom before the attack and shut her inside. A jury was told he then stabbed her in the head with what was described as a large kitchen knife. Those details matter beyond the individual case because they point to failures that schools and local authorities have struggled to contain: how a knife entered the school, how quickly a pupil was able to isolate a teacher, and how little room staff had to protect themselves once the confrontation began.

The case has added to concern about knife crime in schools across the UK, where fears about weapon carrying have intensified after other high-profile stabbing cases in Sheffield and elsewhere. Milford Haven Comprehensive School, in Pembrokeshire, is now linked to a trial that has placed staff safety, classroom security and pupil screening back at the centre of debate. The testimony from Williams offered the clearest evidence yet of the immediate danger faced by teachers when prevention measures fail.