Shocking details of knife attack on teacher

The devoted teacher who was stabbed to death in front of her horrified class by a male pupil said to have a grudge against her may not have had a chance to defend herself, it was revealed today.

Children screamed as the 15 year old calmly walked up behind Ann Maguire during a Spanish lesson in front of 30 pupils yesterday and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck and back with a kitchen knife. 

It is thought to be the first time a pupil has killed a teacher in a British classroom. The attack comes 18 years after headmaster Philip Lawrence was stabbed to death outside the gates of his school.

The school is open as normal today and children began arriving early to add tributes to the more than 200 bouquets of flowers that now cover the railings outside the gates.

Mrs Maguire, 61, will be remembered today at the church connected to the school where she taught for more than 40 years.

Outside the school today, Monsignor Paul Fisher, from the next-door Corpus Christi Catholic Church, said Mrs Maguire would be remembered at a normal morning service later.

Hundreds of pupils, former students and their parents packed the church last night to pay their respects and light candles.

As Mrs Maguire was being attacked, a fellow teacher raced in and grabbed the boy. Other staff helped to detain him until police arrived.

The middle class pupil, who was described as an ‘outcast’, has a picture of the Grim Reaper on his Facebook page.

Mrs Maguire was taken to hospital by paramedics after the attack, at around 11.45am. But she was declared dead on arrival. The murder scene is only within the classroom where she was stabbed.

Married with two grown-up daughters, Mrs Maguire was a caring Spanish teacher known as ‘the mother of her school’.  

Fellow pupils said she had given the boy a detention last week and he told other pupils she was ‘always getting at him’.

Children at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds were seen in tears as they were collected by their parents later in the afternoon, after learning of Mrs Maguire’s death.

Nuns based at Corpus Christi Church, opposite the school, were seen comforting pupils in the hours after the killing.  

Source-Dailym