The family of a 15-year-old boy critically injured after being stabbed in front of fellow pupils today said: “Schools should be somewhere where children are safe.”
The teenager was fighting for life in hospital after he and a friend were injured in a row.
He was knifed along with the fellow year 11 pupil at Kingsdale Foundation School in Alleyn Park, Dulwich, at the end of the day. Witnesses told how the pair staggered from a library to the school’s main atrium, where the more seriously injured boy collapsed, bleeding heavily from a stomach wound.
His older sister today told the Standard: “We are just shocked and praying he is going to be all right. When I got to the school he was already in the ambulance. There were kids crying, police everywhere, I was really shaken.
“I just can’t understand how that can happen in a school building. It should be somewhere where children are safe. Something needs to be done to stop this happening.”
The badly injured teenager’s grandmother added: “He is a lovely boy and we are all praying for him. He has to have an operation. His parents are at the hospital round the clock. We are hoping he will be okay.”
His friend was released from hospital last night after being treated for a stab injury to his leg. Pupils were seen fleeing in tears as police and paramedics rushed inside the school.
A third teenager, believed to be 15, who had been recently excluded, was arrested and was being questioned by police today.
Kingsdale was rated good in its last Ofsted inspection in 2012 and described as “brilliant” by David Cameron during a visit the previous year. Head Steve Morrison confirmed that a student who was excluded was involved in the incident although he did not explain how he had gained access to the school. He added it would be open today and pupils had been offered counselling.
A Met spokesman said: “A teenager has been arrested in connection with the incident. The investigation is ongoing.”
The school’s alumni include SAS soldier turned author Andy McNab, Soul II Soul singer Caron Wheeler and Status Quo drummer John Coghlan.
Former pupil Shaquan Fearon, 17, was stabbed to death in Brockley for “talking to another boy’s girlfriend” in September.
