Boy accused of murdering schoolboy Harvey Willgoose said "you know I can't control it" after fatal stabbing

15-year-old Harvey Willgoose was standing in the courtyard at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield, when a knife was thrust into his chest, penetrating his heart in an incident on February 3, 2025.

“In less than a minute he had collapsed onto the ground, where he lost consciousness and died,” prosecutor, Richard Thyne KC, told jurors.

A teenage boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admits stabbing Harvey and his manslaughter, but denies murdering him.

The boy has gone on trial at Sheffield Crown Court this morning (Tuesday, July 1, 2025), accused of the offence.

Opening the Crown’s case against the boy, Mr Thyne said the teen stabbed Harvey a few minutes into the school lunch break, following a number of earlier “encounters” between the pair, in which the boy is accused of “pushing” and attempting to “provoke,” Harvey.

“The stab wound that killed Harvey was inflicted with such force that the knife cut the bone of one of his ribs. The knife used to cause that wound was a hunting knife with a 13cm, serrated-edged blade. And the person who took that hunting knife into school with him that day, and who used it to inflict the fatal injury upon Harvey, was another pupil: [the defendant],” Mr Thyne said.

Other pupils who were present at the time of the incident “fled in fear and panic, and told members of staff what had happened.”

Jurors have been shown CCTV of the fatal incident, following which the boy was “seen dancing around on his toes and waving the knife around.”

Mr Thyne continued: “Although by this stage he seemed to be saying ‘I’m not going to hurt anyone’. They told him to put the knife down, but he didn’t do so.”

He said members of staff including deputy headteacher Morgan Davis were subsequently called out in response to the incident.

Mr Davis, jurors have been told, found the boy in the dining area, at which point he was still “waving the knife about.”

“Mr Davis told him to hand over the knife, and the boy was saying to him: ‘you know I can’t control it’ – which Mr Davis took to be a reference to his anger issues, given his previous incidents of violent behaviour at school,” Mr Thyne told jurors.

Mr Davis then held out his hand and took the knife from the boy, who was then taken into the office of headteacher, Sean Pender.

The boy is reported to have then told Mr Pender: “I’m not right in the head. My mum doesn’t look after me right. I’ve stabbed him.”

He confirmed that he was referring to Harvey, that he had “stabbed him once or twice” and that he was carrying the knife for his own “protection.”

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He went on to tell Mr Pender that he had “argued” with Harvey earlier and “Harvey had grabbed him whilst laughing at him.”

The boy went on to tell Mr Pender he was also carrying a knife because of a lockdown incident the previous week; and because “he’d been followed over the weekend and he was scared of getting jumped outside of school.”

He also claimed to have been threatened by an associate of one of the boys involved with the earlier incident.

The jury were also told that a spat between Harvey and the defendant began over a group message on the social media platform, Snapchat, before spilling over into direct messages between the pair.

A message alleged to have been sent by the boy on the morning of the fatal incident reads: “If u wan beef we can hav it.”

The prosecution opening of the case against the boy is set to continue this afternoon.