A 14-year-old girl who stabbed two teachers and a pupil at a school has said she was sorry for what she had done and regretted it – wishing she could turn back the clock, a court heard.
Teachers Fiona Elias and Liz Hopkin, and a pupil, were treated in hospital after being stabbed at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, on April 24 last year.
The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded guilty to three counts of wounding with intent and a further count of possession of a bladed article on a school premises.
But she denies three counts of attempted murder.
The teenager told jurors at Swansea Crown Court she was sorry for what happened but could not remember large parts of the incident.
“It’s kind of hard to forget but it’s also really hard to remember. My feelings towards it are sorry,” the teenager told the court.
Caroline Rees KC, defending, asked her if she was sorry and she replied: “Yes.”
“How do you feel about causing really serious injuries to those three people?” Ms Rees asked.
The girl replied: “It doesn’t sound like me. It doesn’t feel like something I would do.”
Ms Rees asked: “Can you believe you did it?”
“No,” the girl replied.
Ms Rees asked: “If you could go back in time would you change things?”
The girl said: “Yes.”
The barrister asked: “Would you do this again if you had the chance?”
“No,” she replied.
Ms Rees asked: “Did you at any point want to kill any of the people involved in this case?”
She replied: “No.”
On the day of the stabbings, the girl told the jury she was “really unhappy” and “quite up and down” in her emotions.
The court heard the girl had started taking a knife to school in primary school because she had been bullied, and would also self-harm.
The girl said her father would check her schoolbag for a knife daily, so she had taken to keeping it in her pocket.
Ms Rees asked the girl: “Did you ever intend to use that knife on anyone else up to April 24? Did you want to hurt anyone else?”
The defendant, who was 13 at the time of the incident, replied: “No.”
The court heard Mrs Elias had caught the girl with a knife in the school the previous September and she had been suspended as a result.
She told the jury she was “rude and irresponsible” towards Mrs Elias and would call her names behind her back.
Ms Rees asked: “Even though you didn’t like her, did you want to hurt her?”
“No,” the girl replied.
“I used to say I hated her, and I wanted her to leave and such, nothing of wanting her dead.”
Ms Rees asked: “Did you want her dead?”
“No,” the girl replied.
Ms Rees asked: “Did you ever intend to kill her at any stage during all of this?”
She replied: “No.”
The teenager was asked whether she wanted to hurt Mrs Hopkin and she replied, “not really”.
She also insisted she did not want to kill her classmate and that she could not remember striking her.
Asked about the moment she was restrained after stabbing the other pupil, she said: “I remember her saying ‘You’re a f****** psychopath’ and I remember saying ‘It’s your fault’ very, very quietly.”
Asked by Williams Hughes KC, prosecuting, if she wanted to kill her classmate or her teachers, she said: “No”.
Mr Hughes asked her about pictures and phrases in a notebook the police found in her home.
He also asked her what she meant by “I feel like I’m going to commit a ‘crime’ of a lifetime, so I am sorry to no-one.”
“What crime are you talking about? In committing a crime of a lifetime did you want to become famous?” he asked
She replied: “No.”
“Were you talking about committing murder when you wrote that? Are you talking about murdering Mrs Elias, talking about murdering the student?”
“No,” she replied.
Mr Hughes took the defendant through the CCTV of the incident in which she can be seen inflicting blows to the two teachers. The teenager denied she had intended to kill them.
He also asked about her comments to the police afterwards in which she said, “that’s one way to be a celebrity”.
“Were you pleased at the idea of getting media attention for what you had just done?” Mr Hughes asked.
She replied: “No.”
“Were you pleased because you had attempted to murder Mrs Elias, Mrs Hopkin and the student?”
“No,” she replied.
The trial continues.
