LONDON

A 16-year-old youth has been named by a judge after he received a minimum of 20 years in jail for murdering his school teacher in front of a classroom full of students in the first case of its kind in Britain.

Will Cornick repeatedly stabbed the Spanish teacher, 61-year-old Ann Maguire, at Corpus Christi Catholic College in the North of England in April this year.

Cornick had initially not been named because of an order in place to protect his identity because of his age, 15 years, at the time of the incident in February last year.

However, Mr Justice Coulson lifted the order following the sentencing on Monday at Leeds Crown Court.

Mrs Maguire's family said in a statement outside the court said they were “looking to the future with a fragile hope”.

Her sister, Denise Courtenay, said that they would “never recover from this pain and anguish”.

"No amount of punishment can compensate us for what we have lost,” she said.

'Emotionless face'

Cornick’s parents sat alongside him in court as he admitted the killing and was sentenced.

Maguire, who had worked at the school for 40 years, had been preparing to retire.

Prosecutor Paul Greaney told the court that Cornick showed no remorse after his actions. 

He said the teenager stabbed Maguire seven times in the neck and back as she leaned over a desk to look at another pupil's work. 

Colleague Susan Francis rushed Mrs Maguire into another room and held the door shut.

Greaney said: "She was able to see the boy through a glass panel in the door. His face was emotionless and he then walked away."

Cornick returned to his classroom and sat down "as if nothing had happened" the prosecutor told the court. 

'Kill or be killed'

Mr Greaney said that when a psychiatrist asked the boy about the effect of his actions on Mrs Maguire's family, Cornick said: "I know the victim's family will be upset but I don't care. In my eyes, everything I've done is fine and dandy."

"It's kill or be killed. I did not have a choice. It was kill her or suicide," he said.

However, the prosecutor said that the actions of Cornick were "inexplicable" as the youth's parents were "decent" and "responsible", adding: "They are at a loss to understand how and why their son has turned out as he has. and they have co-operated fully with the police and with the prosecution."

"It follows that this is not one of those cases in which a defendant's actions may find a degree of explanation in his family circumstances," Greaney told the court. 

As he delivered the sentence, the judge said Cornick showed a "total and chilling lack of remorse" adding that it was “truly grotesque” that the teenager had felt proud over what he did.

The judge said the level of violence was "savage and cowardly" and added that the youth may never be released.  

The case represents the first time a teacher has been stabbed to death in a British school and the first time a teacher had been killed in a school since the 1996 Dunblane massacre, when gunman Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and a teacher at a primary school near Stirling, Scotland.

More than 1,000 people attended a memorial service in September in tribute to Maguire, had two daughters and had also raised two nephews after the death of her sister from cancer in 1986.

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