Teacher thought she was ‘going to die’ in Ammanford school stabbing

A teacher who was stabbed by a 14-year-old girl at a Welsh school thought she was going to die, a court has heard.

Teachers Fiona Elias and Liz Hopkin, along with a student, were injured in the attack in April, at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman also known as Amman Valley School, in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire.

The girl – who cannot be named for legal reasons – previously admitted to wounding with intent but has denied attempted murder.

Swansea Crown Court was shown CCTV footage of the girl attacking the teachers, as the trial resumed on Wednesday.

She could be seen talking with the teachers outside the main school building for a short time before launching an attack on Ms Elias, with Ms Hopkin attempting to restrain her.

She then stabbed Ms Hopkin in the leg and was able to wrestle free, dropping the knife.

The teenager then picked up the knife again and began attacking Ms Hopkin.

The jury was shown police interview footage with the teachers following the stabbing.

Ms Elias described the girl as being “very menacing” while she played with something in the right pocket of her black cargo trousers.

The teacher asked her what she was playing with, to which she responded “do you want to see what’s in my pocket?” before bringing out the knife and beginning to stab Ms Elias saying, “I’m going to f****** kill you”.

Ms Elias said: “I thought I was going to die, I thought that was it.”

“I tried to restrain her; I remember holding her arms.

“Her face – she had lost it, the red mist had come down, she had completely lost it.”

At that point, Ms Hopkin shouted, “Fiona, just go”.

Asked to describe the girl before the attack, she said: “Very distant, very menacing.

“Just looking at me like she was going to do something to me, in a way she was looking through me.”

She described being unsure what injuries she had suffered until she was sat in the office and had taken off the yellow hi-vis jacket she had been wearing.

A colleague treated her with first aid before paramedics arrived and she was treated in Morriston Hospital.

She sustained injuries to the top of her right arm and left bicep, and a small cut to her left hand.

Ms Hopkin told police she had never met the teenager before but described her as acting “really strangely” ahead of the attack.

“She just said, ‘do you want to see what’s in my pocket?’ It was very deadpan and she then just got a knife out of her pocket and went to stab Fiona.

“I wasn’t quick enough to stop her. I was trying to hold her arms down.

“You could see that it was (Ms Elias) that she was after, so I said, ‘Fiona, go go go’.

“I thought I can’t let go but because she had a jacket on I couldn’t get a grip.

“She stabbed me in the leg, that was the first place I got stabbed.”

As the girl picked the knife up again, Ms Hopkin said she remembered the girl coming up to her “face on” and stabbing her in the neck.

“I remember thinking shit, this is it, she stabbed me,” she said.

“I was just shouting for help, in hindsight I should have shouted ‘knife’, I think people would have moved quicker, I could see the kids and I was just thinking people are going to get hurt.”

As she tried to get away the girl stabbed her twice in the back.

She added: “I’m glad to be alive and I’m really glad Fiona is alive. I feel if I hadn’t intervened, she could be dead now.”

Ms Hopkin was taken to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff by air ambulance for treatment.

Assistant headteacher Stephen Hagget told the jury he had attempted to calm the girl after she stabbed the teachers.

Giving evidence from the witness box he said: “As I approached her, I saw she was holding a knife in her right hand.

“I stayed about six feet (from her) I told her to calm down and asked her to pass me the knife.”

He said the girl was “staring”, and she told him she would kill Ms Elias if she saw her again.

Mr Hagget was joined by fellow teacher Darrel Campbell in a bid to calm the girl, and she pointed the knife at him.

He said the teenager broke away from them, running at a pupil and trying to make “a couple of attempts” to stab the other girl.

Mr Hagget then tried to give the pupil first aid, leading her from the scene.

The trial continues.