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Bradford stabbing: 14-year-old boy arrested after teacher attacked during science lesson Bradford stabbing: 14-year-old boy arrested after teacher attacked during science lesson
(about 4 hours later)
A 14-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, after a teacher was stabbed at Dixons Kings Academy in Bradford. The brutal stabbing of a teacher in front of pupils at a Bradford school has reignited the debate about classroom safety in the UK.
The teenager allegedly smuggled a knife to school and stabbed a 50-year-old male teacher in front of other pupils during a science lesson at around 8:55am, according to police. A 14-year-old boy allegedly attacked Vincent Uzomah in a science lesson with a knife smuggled into the Dixons Kings Academy yesterday, leaving him a single wound to the stomach.
The teacher suffered a stab wound to the stomach, and was rushed to hospital. West Yorkshire Police said the man is in a stable condition following the “very serious incident”. Mr Uzomah, understood to be a supply teacher who had been at the school for four weeks, was said to be in a stable condition after being taken to  hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
The victim has been named locally as Leeds man Vincent Uzomah, according to the Yorkshire Post. His family are with him at his bedside as he recovers from non-life-threatening injuries, police have said. Police have arrested a 14-year-old boy after a teacher was stabbed at the Dixons Kings Academy in Bradford The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was caught after a short manhunt in the city centre and arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, said Detective Superintendent Simon Atkinson of West Yorkshire Police.
The teacher was “on supply and had only been at Dixons Kings Academy for four weeks”, according to the Guardian. The stabbing was witnessed by “a few students” in a classroom, according to Nick Weller, executive principal at the academy, who said it happened at the beginning of the school day. He confirmed the suspect is a pupil at the school and has been there a year.
Officers were earlier hunting a missing boy described as Asian, with short dark hair, who was last seen wearing a blue uniform blazer. “Obviously, it’s a very shocking thing for them to see,” he said, adding that the school’s thoughts were with the teacher’s family.
Police have since arrested a boy in Bradford city centre following an extensive search operation. However, some parents of pupils at the school were critical of Mr Weller’s decision to keep the school open “to keep to normal routines”.
Detective Superintendent Simon Atkinson, of the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, said that specially trained staff are on hand to support the pupils who witnessed the "horrendous" incident in the classroom. A police dog handler and his dog searching fields next to Dixons Kings Academy in Bradford, prior to the arrest of a teenager Shakeel Ahmed, 39, had been sent a text from his 14-year-old son saying there had been a stabbing, but said police would not let him on the premises. The school, he added, was “good”, and did not have discipline problems, but he said he had been “scared” by the incident. He said the school should check pupils are “not carrying anything”, on arrival.
"We've got a welfare issue to make sure we manage as well since they potentially witnessed something horrendous," he said. Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has said “violence of any kind in schools is totally unacceptable”, and the latest incident has reignited the debate about school safety.It comes just over a year after a teacher in Leeds was stabbed to death in her classroom.
Mr Atkinson continued: "This is believed to be an isolated incident and the police are continuing inquiries to establish the facts. In a murder that shocked the country, Will Cornick stabbed Ann Maguire, 61,  seven times from behind as she taught a Spanish class at Corpus Christi Catholic College.
"I would like to reassure residents and staff that all necessary resources are being deployed to investigate this ongoing and clearly serious incident," he added. Principal at Dixon Kings Academy, Neil Miley and Executive Principal at Dixon Kings, Nick Weller (centre left) speak to the media outside the Academy in Bradford (PA)
A police dog handler and his dog searching fields next to Dixons Kings Academy in Bradford, prior to the arrest of a teenager The detective would not comment on whether police had recovered a knife or what help staff and pupils gave to the injured teacher. However, he confirmed the incident happened in a science class. Cornick, who was 15 at the time, boasted to his friends that he was going to kill her, and winked to a classmate before he launched the attack on 28 April last year. He later told psychiatrists: “Everything I’ve done is fine and dandy.”
Superintendent Damien Miller said he wanted to offer his assurance to the people of Lidget Green, which he described as a close knit-community. The murder prompted some to call for metal detector checks for pupils, although Ms Maguire’s colleagues said she would have been “strongly opposed” to the idea. This view was echoed yesterday by Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Prior to the arrest, Mr Atkinson said the school re-opened following the attack and had continued as normal while police liaised with school staff. “If someone wants to get a knife into a school, they will,” she said. “Schools have perimeter fences – there are lots of ways to get things into a school that don’t involve going through a metal arch.” She added that this stabbing was “a sign of the terrible, terrible condition of our society, that teachers, who are working with young people, become the targets of this terrible violence.”
"We are also working closely with our partners in the local authorities to investigate the full circumstances of this incident, which will be the subject of a thorough investigation," said Mr Atkinson. However, Ian Murch, of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) Bradford branch, which has members at the school, said the latest incident “does raise questions with people about safety”.
Principal at Dixon Kings Academy, Neil Miley and Executive Principal at Dixon Kings, Nick Weller (centre left) speak to the media outside the Academy in Bradford (PA) Speaking outside the school gates, the executive principal of the Dixons Academy group in Bradford, Nick Weller, said: "It happened right at the beginning of the school day and there were some students who witnessed it. A few students witnessed it - in a classroom. “Obviously people are shocked – they would be when an incident like this happens at a school,” he said.
"Those students have been interviewed by the police. Obviously, it's a very shocking thing for them to see. The general atmosphere in the school is very calm, quite orderly, we're trying to keep to normal routines as much as possible." Russell Hobby, the National Association of Head Teachers’ general secretary, said it was “important to remember how rare these things are and that’s why they’re so shocking”.
Mr Weller added that there was nothing to suggest that the attack was going to be launched. “[Most] schools are doing the right things, in terms of protecting teachers and pupils,” he said. “It’s important for each individual school to create the security measures to suit the context that they’re in and not to apply the same blanket solution to all schools.”
He said: "I think there was some....the police are looking into the lead up to this incident, there was nothing in school that led up to it - there may have been other people outside the school who maybe knew something."
Additional reporting by PA