This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/10/teacher-stabbed-pupil-racist-attack-court-bradford

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Pupil who stabbed teacher in racist attack given 11-year sentence Pupil who stabbed teacher in racist attack given 11-year sentence
(about 1 hour later)
Warning: this report contains offensive language A teenage boy who stabbed his teacher in class and then went on Facebook to boast about having “put a knife in his tummy” has been given an extended sentence of 11 years – but could serve less than three.
A 14-year-old boy who stabbed a teacher in a racially motivated attack has been sentenced to an 11-year extended sentence, including six years in custody. The boy, described as a low-achieving cannabis user with a criminal record, was 14 when he stabbed Vincent Uzomah, 50, a supply teacher at Dixon Kings academy in Bradford on 11 June, following an argument about an iPhone.
The teacher thought he was going to die after he was stabbed in the attack, the court heard. Bradford crown court heard the attack was premeditated and partially racially motivated. Uzomah is black and the boy – who is of Pakistani origin - regularly referred to him “by the epithet beginning with the letter N”, prosecuting barrister Jonathan Sharp said. The boy used the term just before plunging his knife into the teacher’s stomach, penetrating the delicate membrane enclosing Uzomah’s bowel.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, used an offensive racist term before stabbing Vincent Uzomah in the stomach, Bradford crown court heard. Uzomah survived but in a statement read to court said the attack had left psychological scars. He said he wasn’t sure when – if ever – he would feel ready to return to the profession he loved. A committed Christian, he said he was praying to God that the boy “would realise that violence is no path to take and that He would help him rather to become a useful member of society”.
He then fled Dixons Kings academy, in Bradford, before boasting about what he had done on Facebook, the court was told. In the public gallery, the boy’s father, wearing a white tunic and crocheted skull cap, listened with his head bowed, while another relative fingered a string of prayer beads. The stocky defendant sat in the dock flanked by two security guards, occasionally yawning during the two-hour hearing.
Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC branded the youth a “dangerous young offender”. He sentenced him to an 11-year extended sentence which includes six years custody and a further five years on licence. He could serve half of the six years. Outside court, Uzomah said he forgave the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons: “As a Christian I have forgiven this boy who has inflicted this trauma and pain on me and my family.”
Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, said the boy was described by others as “disruptive and a bully” and had taken a dislike to Uzomah in the seven weeks he had worked at the school, as a supply teacher. Sentencing the boy on Monday, the judge, Jonathan Durham Hall QC, called the boy a “dangerous young offender” and an “antisocial bully” who hated being disciplined by a black man. “You would not tolerate being told off by this gentleman of this background,” he told the boy.
Sharp said: “He did not show any especial hostility to other teachers. Mr Uzomah, however, is black. He said it was an “appalling reflection on a small microcosm … of society” that within minutes or hours after the attack, the boy’s boastful Facebook post had garnered 69 “likes”: “how sick”, said the judge.
“The defendant disliked him, claiming he couldn’t teach, and freely referred to him by the epithet beginning with the letter n, including saying it in anger just before he attacked him.” The boy had written: “The motherfucker getin funny so I stick the blade straight in his tummy.”
Sharp said the boy told a friend the previous day that he was planning to stab a teacher and took a knife with a “substantial blade” into school on June 11, discussing his plans with other pupils. The judge rejected claims the boy made to a psychiatrist that “voices” told him to do it, and that he chanced upon the knife on the way to school. He said two of the boy’s classmates had heard him claiming he was going to stab a teacher.
He stabbed Uzomah after a row over his mobile phone, the court was told. The court heard that the boy was a “low achiever and of low academic ability” with a history of truancy. His fellow pupils described him as disruptive and a bully, though the academy’s deputy head said that until the attack “you could always relate to [the boy] and calm him down, and he would acknowledge his faults”.
Sharp said the boy was described by witnesses as “getting angry, red in the face and putting his head down and muttering the words bastard and nigger”. Yet the boy stabbed Uzomah simply after the teacher ordered him to surrender a gold iPhone he had taken from his brother that morning. After muttering the words “bastard” and “nigger”, the boy went to the classroom door, saying “you can have my phone”, before taking out his knife and stabbing Uzomah in the stomach before running away and scaling the school fence.
He said: “He approached Mr Uzomah and reached into his pocket but at that point he took out the knife and stabbed Mr Uzomah in the stomach.” After posting on Facebook, the boy whiled away the rest of the day on the streets of Bradford. He was arrested by the fountains in City Square with two other teenage boys and on arrest said: “you got me”.
He added: “Mr Uzomah thought he was going to die.” Despite his 11-year extended sentence, the boy could be out in the community within three years after Hall ruled that the “determinative” custodial part of his sentence be just six years. That means he will be released on parole after serving half of that, if he behaves.
About 20 minutes after the attack the boy posted a message on Facebook which read: “The motherfucker getin funny so I stick the blade straight in his tummy.” This was one ground given for refusing an application by the Sun to be allowed to identify the boy. The tabloid had already named and photographed him the day after the attack, exploiting a legal loophole that allows minors to be named before they appear in youth court.
Sharp told the court the post received at least 69 “likes”. Refusing the application to drop reporting restrictions – which only apply until the boy is 18 – the judge said that the “logistics” of the sentence meant the boy would probably still be under 18 when he was released into the community, albeit under tight supervision.
The boy’s welfare and rehabilitation had to come before the considerable public interest in naming and shaming him, said the judge.
The court heard that the boy was on bail for a burglary at the time of the attack. He had been arrested on 3 April in a house onin Bradford with another three boys. In March 2014 he had been given a six-month referral order for attempted robbery and common assault. When just 13 and a friend had mugged two boys and threatened to kill them.
The boy was originally charged with attempted murder, but the Crown Prosecution Service agreed to drop that charge when he pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm with intent.