Boy, 17, 'smashed the skulls' of two boarding school students as they slept in ... trends now
A teenage boy smashed the skulls of two boarding school students as they slept in their dorms before trying to kill a teacher at Blundell's private school, a court has heard.
The boy, now 17, launched a violent assault at the £41,000-a-year school in Tiverton, Devon, with the intent to kill, the trial heard.
Two of the victims, aged 16 and 15 at the time, were taken to hospital in life-threatening conditions and will never fully recover, the court heard.
The adult victim Henry Roffe-Silvester, 38, who was a member of staff at the school and the housemaster of the dorm, was also taken to hospital and was later discharged.
The defendant, then a 16-year-old boy, was arrested at the scene after the attack just after midnight on June 9 last year.
Blundell's private school, where a teenage boy tried to kill two boarding school students as they slept in the dorms before trying to kill a teacher
Police at the scene following the incident on June 9 last year
The boy launched a violent assault at the £41,000-a-year school in Tiverton, Devon, with the intent to kill, a trial heard
He went on trial at Exeter Crown Court today, charged with three counts of attempted murder.
Opening the case, James Dawes KC said two boys had gone to bed and the victims had been fast asleep since before midnight.
Mr Dawes said: 'The defendant decided to put into action a plan that he had been fermenting in his head for some time.
'That plan was to kill (the two boys) and he decided to do it while they slept in their own beds - and he decided to do it with a hammer.
'It is not known which boy he attacked first. He was in possession of four claw hammers. A heavy hammer with a flat striking side and a claw at the back and he had four of them.
'He selected a hammer and he quietly climbed up onto the top of the first cabin bed.
'The boys were asleep and they both had heads on pillows and then he smashed the hammers into their heads as they slept. Multiple times.
'He also hit arms and backs, he didn't just use the flat end of the hammer, he used the claw as well to strike these boys.
'These blows smashed their skulls. It broke through the skull driving pieces of bone into the brain.'
Blows to the back of one of the victims damaged his spleen, and broke a rib with its edge puncturing one of his lungs.
'Blood went everywhere', Mr Dawes added.
He approached the second victim who was also asleep, climbed up and 'smashed a hammer down onto his head multiple times as he slept', Mr Dawes told the jury.
'Those blows broke his skull, driving pieces of bone into his brain and the membranes around the brain. He hit his upper arm with the hammer, claw side.
'You may think whoever does that intends to kill the person he is attacking - they were sleeping at the time.
'Astonishingly they both survived these
