Ammanford school stabbing: Girl took knives to school

A 14-year-old girl who stabbed two teachers and a pupil said she had taken a knife to school every day since primary school, a court has heard.

Teachers Fiona Elias and Liz Hopkin, as well as a pupil at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, were taken to hospital after being stabbed on 24 April.

The girl, who cannot be named due to her age, has admitted the triple stabbing but denies attempted murder.

Giving evidence at Swansea Crown Court, she said she was “scared and worried” in school so had taken “blades” or multi-tools in with her since Year 3 or 4.

The girl, who was 13 at the time, told the court she felt “terrible” about what happened and would “do anything to go back”.

“It doesn’t feel like I did it, to be honest. [I feel] terrible, guilty,” she said.

She added that she did not intend to kill any of the people who were injured and could not remember large parts of the incident.

She confirmed Ms Elias found a knife in her bag in September 2023 because she “forgot it was there” and was suspended for five days.

Her dad subsequently checked her bag daily so she would take knives to school in her pocket, she said.

The girl denied saying she wanted to kill Ms Elias before the attacks.

“I would say stuff like ‘I want to punch her, or slap her. I never wished by anyone to be dead,” she told the court.

The teenager said she did not know Ms Hopkin, but had drawn and written about the pupil who was stabbed.

She said that followed an incident that made her “angry” a week or two before the attacks, but she told the jury she did not want to physically hurt the pupil.

She said she put the multitool in her pocket “as usual” on 24 April and would keep it under her bed or in her clothes so it would be “less suspicious”.

She said nobody checked her bag that day and she was on her period, causing her to feel “upset or grumpy”.

She said before the stabbings she carved her name into the floor in the lower school hall, an area she was not allowed to be in.

She also told the court she had self harmed in the past.

The trial continues