Hammer-wielding public schoolboy who claimed he was sleepwalking during attack on fellow students locked up for life | British news

A public schoolboy who claimed he was sleepwalking when he tried to kill two students and a teacher in a hammer attack has been jailed for life.

The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was wearing only his boxer shorts when he repeatedly punched his roommates as they slept at one of the boarding houses at Blundell’s School in Tiverton, Devon, in June last year.

Both boys suffered skull fractures and a prosecutor said the pair were “lucky to be alive.”

Maths teacher Henry Roffe-Silvester was asleep in his own room when he was woken by noises from the boarding house and went to investigate.

He told a jury he saw a silhouetted figure standing in front of him in the room, who then turned and hit him repeatedly in the head with a hammer.

The perpetrator denied three attempted murders and claimed he was sleepwalking. but was found guilty in June by a jury after a ten-week trial at Exeter Crown Court.

At Exeter Crown Court on Friday he was jailed for life, with a minimum term of 12 years.

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