Girl âtook knife to school every dayâ before stabbing
A teenager who stabbed two teachers and a pupil took a knife to school every day, a jury has heard.
Fiona Elias, Liz Hopkin and a pupil were injured in the attack at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman, Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, on 24 April last year.
The 14-year-old, who cannot be named due to her age, has admitted the triple stabbing but denies three counts of attempted murder.
On the fifth day of the trial, the girl said she would bring âweaponsâ to school as an âinstinct thingâ, but never intended to hurt anyone.
Giving evidence at Swansea Crown Court on Friday, the teenager told the jury she was bullied and would often self-harm: â[I was] quite anxious, scared, all the time. During school, after school, 24/7.â
After a knife was found in her school bag in September 2023, the defendant told the jury her father would check her school bag every day, and so she would put a knife âin [her] pocket insteadâ.
She told the jury she did not like Ms Elias, and said she was ârudeâ towards her teacher, but never intended to harm her.
The girl accepted she drew an image headed âMrs Frogface Eliasâ, but said it was âjust taking the mickâ.
She said she âcouldnât rememberâ telling a pupil she wanted to stab Ms Elias a week before the attack.
âI used to say stuff like âI hate herâ, and never that I wanted her dead,â she added.
The girl said she did not know Ms Hopkin before the stabbing, adding she did not have any intention to hurt her or deliberately target Ms Hopkinâs neck during the attack.
âI suppose Iâm sorryâ
The teenager said she did not get on with the pupil she stabbed, but also had no intention of hurting her.
The defendant replied âI canât rememberâ to most of the questions by defence barrister Caroline Rees KC about the day of the attack.
When the defence barrister asked her about how she felt about harming the three, she said: âIt just doesnât sound like me.
âItâs kind of hard to forget, but also hard to remember, I suppose Iâm sorry.â
When referring to her attack on the pupil, the defendant said: âI remember being pulled back into a corner and her calling me a psychopath.
âI said âItâs your faultâ, very, very quietly. I remember being very exhausted.â
The teenager said her âheart felt like it was burning,â when she saw one of the three being taken away on a stretcher.
The teenager was then asked by the defence barrister about comments she made following the attack in a police van, including the word âoopsiesâ and asking âare they dead?â.
âI donât remember much of that conversation,â she replied.
She said she felt regret at the way she behaved that day: âIt was really out of character.â
In his closing speech William Hughes KC, prosecuting, said: âYou may not think itâs uncommon for a teenager to write dark thoughts.
âBut itâs a world of difference, ladies and gentlemen, to carry out those thoughts and actually doing it.â
The case continues.