A teenager fascinated by serial killers has been convicted of attempting to murder a girl in an unprovoked stabbing at his school.

The boy, who had also written about his ‘hatred for women’, was 15 when he approached the unsuspecting victim in a corridor wearing a mask and drove a knife into her back.

The attack triggered an urgent search for the assailant. He fled the school, leaping over a gate as a teacher pursued him.

Thorpe St Andrew School, near Norwich in Norfolk, remained in lockdown for several hours before armed police found and arrested the suspect, who cannot be named for legal reasons. Concerned parents gathered outside after learning of the incident on social media.

The investigation uncovered what prosecutors described as a ‘dangerous interest in killers and killing’. The teenager had used an app to produce disturbing videos, including one depicting serial killers Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy ‘dancing over a still image of the globe’.

Notes discovered by police appeared to indicate a possible motive. The boy had written: ‘misanthropy, misogyny, suicide, bullying’.

The teenager admitted causing grievous bodily harm with intent and possessing a bladed article, but denied attempting to murder the girl.

After a two-week trial, the jury at King’s Lynn Crown Court retired yesterday to consider its verdict. It took less than four hours to reach a unanimous decision this morning.

Wearing a grey sweatshirt, the teenager showed no reaction as he sat in the glass-fronted dock between two security guards and a woman intermediary who had remained beside him throughout the trial.

Members of the public, including relatives of the boy, also remained silent as the verdict was delivered from the public gallery.

His victim, who had been sitting in court with members of her family, wept as she left the building afterwards.

Earlier, Mr Justice Lickley KC had instructed those in the gallery to show ‘no reaction’ and receive the verdict with ‘respect’.

The judge adjourned sentencing at King’s Lynn Crown Court until December 18 to allow reports to be prepared.

Mr Justice Lickley said: ‘I am going to order a pre-sentence report and the court will assess the issue of dangerousness.’

Addressing the teenager, the judge said: ‘You have been found guilty by the jury of the offence of attempted murder. I am sure you understand how serious that is.

‘I won’t pass sentence today. I will be passing sentence on December 18 when reports will be available at that time. I am sure you will understand that, not only will I have to pass a custodial sentence, but one of considerable length.’

The boy’s collection of disturbing videos created using the CapCut app also featured a compilation of Paul Spector, the fictional killer from the BBC series The Fall.

Another video showed Dexter Morgan, the serial-killer vigilante from the long-running US programme Dexter, ‘dancing over a map of Florida with a list of names of the victims’.

Suffolk Strangler Steve Wright, who killed five prostitutes from Ipswich in 2006, was also referenced.

The court heard the boy had also written that he had ‘seen killers being admired, I want admiration, gratification. I’ve wanted this for years. I don’t care who I hurt. Not anymore’.

Other notes found at his bedroom described how ‘the idea of violence or possibly even murder sparks something in me’.

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One appeared to outline a plan for multiple murders. It said: ‘I really want to do it, really bad. I hate having to wait… but I have to wait. I need a plan…

‘I want at least two, maybe three. I’d be proud of five.’

And a suicide note found pinned to his wall said bleakly: ‘My barren world. Hello to all readers out there in the UK and perhaps the world. If you’re reading this, I’m either dead or in custody.’

The defendant, who is now 16, continued: ‘My resentment for myself and others has only grown throughout my existence. I thought it got better. I tried to make it better.

‘But I see it in people’s eyes. The disgust. Perhaps it’s reflection of me? No. My reflection is what fuels their hatred. Ever since the failure of a relationship, my hatred for women has fuelled.

‘A girl I’ve never met before said something degrading to me the other day. I wanted to cut that ugly bitch’s throat. And her retarded little slut friend.

‘They’re nothing but fools that know nothing about life or feelings. Am I evil for that? Probably. Am I an incel? A misogynist? No. I just have good judgement.’

School CCTV footage played in court during the trial showed the defendant approach his 15-year-old victim on May 11 and strike her in the left of her back near her shoulder blade with the knife.

He then ran away, pursued by the brave teacher, leaving behind a glove.

When he was arrested by police shortly afterwards, his backpack is said to have contained the other glove, the mask and a black woollen hat. He directed officers to the knife he used.

His victim escaped with minor injuries by ‘sheer luck’, prosecutor Chris Paxton KC said, and was released from hospital the following day.

In a recorded interview, she described how she thought he had punched her at first and began walking away, only starting to sprint when a teacher ‘screamed’ at her.

Giving evidence in court, she added she didn’t know her attacker and had never even seen him before.

The trial heard the defendant had a kitchen knife from home in November last year and later went to his mother to confess he was ‘feeling down and had intended to hurt himself but he chickened out’.

This followed a personal issue he was dealing with and help was sought from his school. He also agreed to have counselling.

In his opening speech, prosecutor Mr Paxton said the schoolboy – who ‘remained silent’ during his police interview – had ‘an intention to kill’. 

‘That is why he had a knife, that is why he approached her from behind, that is why he stabbed her in the back, bringing the knife up and back before striking it into her,’ he said.

‘Further, we say his intention is made plain not just by those moments of the stabbing but by his notes, and his obsession with killing, and being fuelled by hatred.’

Following the conviction, Detective Inspector Kerrie Atkin said: ‘This was a deeply shocking and deliberate attack which caused significant distress to the victim, her family, fellow pupils and the wider school community.’

Mr Paxton today said victim impact statements would be prepared for the sentencing, along with a report on the ‘wider impact on the school community’. 

During Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” host Jake Tapper said House Democrats had not offered “any sort of cohesive plan” for governing if they take control of the House after the midterm elections.

Interviewing Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., Tapper pressed him on the party’s legislative priorities. “So, House Democrats, as a whole, have not presented any sort of cohesive plan for how you guys are going to legislate if you do win the House, which many people think is likely to happen,” Tapper said. He asked Davis to identify the top legislative priority and explain how Democrats could advance it, given that President Trump would have to either sign the measure into law or veto it. “What’s number one?” Tapper asked.

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Davis said the central concern he hears from both Republicans and Democrats is the rising cost of living and the broader struggle for financial survival. He pointed to seventh-generation farmers worried about keeping their family farms and said the next Congress must remain “laser-focused” on reducing costs. Davis added that farmers and commercial fishermen are especially concerned about high fuel prices. Lawmakers, he argued, must address the issues affecting American families rather than emphasize affordability during election season and then pursue different priorities once in office. Doing so, he said, would fail the constituents they were elected to serve.

A 47-year-old care worker died after crashing her car while attempting to reach hospital following an alleged attack at a retirement complex in Bridgend. A 61-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

The woman, from North Cornelly in Bridgend, South Wales, has not yet been publicly named. She died in hospital after her vehicle struck a wall.

She had reportedly suffered serious injuries during an incident at the Ger-y-Nant retirement housing complex, where she was working.

Neighbours said the woman had been warned that an ambulance could take some time to arrive. She then made her way to her car alone in an effort to get urgent medical treatment.

Despite her severe injuries, she drove for around 300 yards before hitting a wall at approximately midday on Monday.

Paramedics attended the crash, but the woman was later pronounced dead.

South Wales Police described the lunchtime incident as “deeply distressing”. Officers said they discovered that the woman’s injuries were unrelated to the collision.

Later on Monday, officers carried out a major operation at the retirement complex and arrested a 61-year-old man.

South Wales Police said: “Officers were called to Coity Road, Bridgend, at around 12.43pm [on Monday] following a report of a road traffic collision in which a car had collided with a wall.

“Upon attendance, officers identified that the driver had sustained injuries unrelated to the collision.

“Despite medical attention, the driver, a 47-year-old woman from North Cornelly, has died at hospital. Her family has been informed, although formal identification has yet to take place.

“Following a significant policing operation in the area of nearby Ger-y-Nant, a 61-year-old man from Bridgend has been arrested on suspicion of murder. He remains in police custody.”

The retirement village consists of an apartment block containing 13 social housing flats for people aged over 60. It is managed by housing association Valleys to Coast.

A Valleys to Coast spokesperson said: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic incident in Bridgend on October 19 and can confirm that a member of our team was involved.

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“Our thoughts are with our colleague’s family, friends and everyone affected by this. We are working closely with South Wales Police and cooperating fully with their ongoing investigation.”

Residents said the woman was alone when she was found in the car, just a few hundred yards from the property being searched by police.

Sue Thomas, who lives opposite the residential complex, paid tribute to the woman, saying she had “gone to work and did not come home”.

She said: “The residents are back but people going in have to sign in and out.”

‘You don’t expect to go to work and not come home. I feel for her family.’

Gavin Owen, who lives near the scene, watched as SWAT teams of armed cops swooped outside his house.

He said: ‘There was police, everything was cordoned off. So I got scared and worried, and didn’t know what was going on.

‘When I got home, at the bottom of my street, by the garage, it was cordoned off.

‘I had to tell them where I lived and they had to escort me to my front door. They said we’re going to have to sign in and out if we want to come in or leave.’

He added: ‘We had people coming to interview us, asking us for ring doorcam footage. And gradually it then expanded, with standard police officers, then men in suits, and a riot team and then a SWAT team.

‘They had ladders up, cable ties going on the roof, it was just insane.’

Chief Superintendent Jason Rees said: ‘This is a deeply distressing incident, and our thoughts are with the victim’s family, and everyone affected.

‘We thank the local community for their support, which has resulted in an arrest with no further injuries sustained.

‘We thank those displaced from their homes overnight for their co-operation at a worrying time as we support them in returning home.

‘We thank the local community for their co-operation as our investigation continues.’

Police appealed for anyone with information or footage on the incident to contact the force. 

Sixty years ago, Jeff Edwards OBE began October 21, 1966, like any other morning in the small South Wales mining village of Aberfan.

He stopped at a tuck shop with his best friend, Robert, to buy some favourite sweets — pink shrimps, flying saucers and sherbet — before making his way to school for the final day before half-term.

Neither boy could have known that the day would end with the deaths of 144 people, including 116 children, in what would become one of the worst industrial disasters in British history.

The tragedy began high above the village at around 7.30am, when a coal tip subsided by roughly 10ft. Coal bosses were not informed until 9am because there were no telephone lines on the mountain and a worker had to walk to deliver the message. By then, the tip had sunk a further 10ft.

Just 15 minutes later, coal tip No. 7 collapsed. An estimated 150,000 tons of slurry surged down the mountainside, engulfing Pantglas Junior School, where 240 pupils and their teachers were gathered, as well as 19 homes on Moy Road.

Jeff, who was eight at the time, was returning books to a shelf closest to the coal tip when he heard a loud “rumbling sound”. His teacher reassured him and the other pupils that it was only “thunder”.

Moments later, after three weeks of heavy rain, darkness swept through the classroom.

Jeff later awoke beneath the wreckage to the sound of screams and shouting, with a dead girl resting against his shoulder.

His survival came down to chance. A small pocket of air enabled him to breathe, while rescuers were able to locate him after spotting his distinctive blond hair.

Queen Elizabeth later remembered him as “the little boy with the blond hair”. She visited Aberfan eight days after the disaster, a decision that was described as the biggest regret of her 70-year reign.

“I woke up with this material all over me,” he told the Daily Mail. “The roof had come down. I was buried with a desk pressed against my stomach and a dead girl on my shoulder.

“I was very lucky. The reason I survived was that there was a pocket of air around me, which meant I was able to breathe.

“When the fire service entered the classroom, they saw my blond hair and began clearing the material away. Eventually, they freed me from the desk.”

Firefighter Roy Thomas was the man who pulled Jeff from the rubble, making him the last child recovered alive. As desperate villagers spent hours searching for their loved ones, hopes of finding further survivors faded. No one else was rescued alive after Jeff.

“I had injuries to my head and stomach, but those wounds healed over time. The psychological injury — the trauma — is something I will carry with me until the end of my life.

“Survivor’s guilt is a huge thing,” he said tearfully. “It is difficult because the distance between life and death can be a matter of inches. You ask yourself why you survived when others did not.

“I think that has been the driving force behind my efforts to make life better for people in the community.”

‘Myself, David, Gaynor and others have wanted to make it a better place, to reflect those opportunities that those people who lost their lives didn’t have.

‘And to also give children of this generation aspiration in terms of saying that they can achieve anything they want. They are really going to be the custodians of this story.

Reflecting on events ahead of today’s anniversary, including a visit from the Japanese ambassador, Hiroshi Suzuki, he added: ‘Each event obviously brings greater emotion as we get nearer the 21st.’

The Queen, who remembered him as the ‘boy with blond hair’ during a Buckingham Palace visit decades later, maintained a close bond with the coal mining village of Aberfan.

Throughout her reign, she visited several times and later gave a personal donation to the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Youth and Community project, which later received the Golden Jubilee Award.

The initiative, of which the late Queen was ‘very supportive’, was co-founded by Jeff to support locals after he saw a rise in drug and alcohol use in the area in the decades that followed the disaster.

‘Lots of young people who traditionally went into the mining industry were unemployed because of the colliery closures, were stealing cars and were buying alcohol and drugs to alleviate the hopelessness of both of their lives,’ he explained.

In 1997, she also insisted on altering her schedule to go to the village while on an official visit to Merthyr Tydfil. She made her final visit for Aberfan in 2012 when she opened Ynysowen Community Primary School.

The Queen’s former secretary, Lord Charteris, previously revealed he felt he had given the monarch poor advice to ‘stay away [from Aberfan] until the preliminary shock had worn off’.

However, when she arrived in the mining village in its darkest hour, she was met with respect and adoration by locals as she became ‘really upset’ and ‘had to compose herself’ before meeting those who had lost loved ones.

‘If she’d come on the day, it would have impeded the rescue process because any royal visit does have an entourage with it; I think she came at the right time,’ Jeff said. 

‘She was really upset; she started to get tears in her eyes when Councillor Jim Williams’s granddaughter presented her the posy, which was inscribed from the surviving children.’

But amid the fallout of the disaster, there was little justice for the community, although a national tribunal found the ‘blame for the disaster rest[ed] upon the National Coal Board’ due to a failure to manage piles of waste safely.

However, not one person was prosecuted – or even demoted following the disaster.

The community did eventually recover, but mostly due to its resilience and mutual support from its own residents, including the Aberfan Wives Group and the Male Voice Choir, Mr Edwards explained.

‘What brought the community together really is the injustice of the tip removal, the decision of the coal board to prolong the inquiry.

‘It brought community cohesion together and built resilience to face the difficulties they faced at that time.

‘It was a mining community that has suffered injustices, focused on the need to do things.’

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the disaster, a shocking report revealed that around one in ten families in Wales are still living near ‘high risk’ coal tips that are becoming increasingly unsafe due to the impacts of climate change.

There are 2,589 disused coal tips scattered throughout Wales, hundreds of which have been labelled Category C and D, requiring more frequent monitoring because they pose a higher risk.

In January 2025, an FOI request by BBC Wales found 13 coal tips had been upgraded to a higher risk category since November 2022, with 11 of those upgraded to the most serious categories – C and D.

Fresh concerns arose in November 2024, after Storm Bert sparked a ‘washout of a former coal tip’ in Cwmtillery, Blaenau Gwent, forcing residents to leave their homes and stay in a leisure centre overnight.

That same year, the UK government pledged £25million to Welsh coal tip safety for 2025-26 as well as further funding of £39.3million a year until 2029.

A new report has revealed that more than 130,000 households in Wales are close to coal tips, which pose a risk to public safety amid fears of the consequences of extreme weather such as heavy rain in the area.

Sofie Jenkinson, co-director of Round Our Way, told The Mirror: ‘Wales powered the Industrial Revolution but people are still living with the consequences.’

Next April, a new Disused Tips Authority is set to be formed to monitor and evaluate every single tip in terms of stability, a move described by Mr Edwards as ‘a huge step forward’.

However, he remained critical of the amount of time taken for such a body to be formed.

‘It’s taken 60 years, so how long is a piece of string…,’ he said. ‘If you look at any company, safety is a very expensive commodity. Nothing may happen.

‘But when people are looking at their budgets, safety is the one that they tend to cut until something goes badly wrong. In our case, the death of 116 children and 28 adults.’

Following the tragedy, Mr Edwards remained fiercely dedicated to bettering his wider community of Merthyr Tydfil, including Aberfan. He served as centenary mayor and council leader as well as the High Sheriff of Mid-Glamorgan.

In April 2026, he was awarded an OBE by King Charles III for his services to fellow survivors of disasters, to charity, as well as the coal mining village, in a ceremony held at Windsor Castle.

He has been involved with initiatives designed to help provide better support to victims of tragedies like Aberfan, Grenfell, the 2017 Manchester bombing, through the Hillsborough Charter as well as the National Emergency Trust.

‘I would encourage anybody who’s been involved in any major trauma to speak about it. Because otherwise you keep that anxiety and stress within yourself,’ he said.

‘And you are really making yourself a lot worse. Recovery is a long process, but what we have to ensure is that resources are available for those who need the help.’

‘Services have improved from the time of 1966,’ he said. ‘There’s still a long way to go, but at least they have improved for people.’

There have been a series of events ahead of tomorrow’s 60th anniversary, including the release of archived documents of the tragedy by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service.

Among them are chilling black-and-white photographs of the aftermath, showing droves of locals desperately looking for survivors among mountains of slurry and debris. Clouds of steam billow from the coal waste that decimated Moy Road.

Notes from control room calls, as well as a handwritten letter to the Home Office, were also released as part of the archive.

The local fire service also visited children at Ynysowen Primary School with one of the very first emergency vehicles to respond to the tragedy ahead of tomorrow’s anniversary.

The visit was part of the Aberfan 60 programme, and included White Watch firefighters who brought along a modern fire truck, as well as the restored emergency vehicle owned by Henry Cotton to Merthyr Fire Station.

Firefighter Sam Gill said the service ‘will always remember those who were lost, and we are always here to protect and support our communities today’.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited the cemetery in Aberfan today, where he met Jeff alongside Stephen Kinnock, the Secretary of State for Wales.

There he spoke to David Davies, chairman of the Aberfan Memorial Charity, and Mair Morgan, the last surviving teacher from the school.

‘It’s great honestly to be with you,’ he told survivors and families of those who died. ‘I wanted to be here. It’s really important.

‘I remember my mum and dad talked to me a lot about it. I was born just after. It impacted everyone in a very profound way.’

King Charles, Queen Camilla, as well as the Prince and Princess of Wales, are set to visit Aberfan tomorrow as the village marks the 60th anniversary of the tragedy.