Sheffield teen who admitted it 'feels good to hurt someone' after four stabbings gets 18 years behind bars

Callom Taylor, aged 19, was brought to justice for the five people he attacked during four episodes of violence carried out in Gleadless between November 2021 and January 2022 during a hearing held at Sheffield Crown Court on August 30, when he was given a 23-year extended sentence, comprised of 18 years’ custody and a five-year extended licence period.

As the Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson QC, sent Taylor to begin his sentence, he told the teenager: “I have no doubt you are a dangerous young man.

“You have committed a series of very serious attacks upon individuals with knives and other offensive weapons. Serious injuries have been caused.”

He added: “You could have killed any one of them.”

The court heard how during Taylor’s reign of terror over four separate incidents, he attacked a man with ‘intellectual disadvantages’ with nunchucks; stabbed a male relation to the arm and hip; let himself into the house of a couple who had been ‘kind’ to him and stabbed them both multiple times, before robbing and stabbing another man known to him.

Two of Taylor’s victims required surgery following his attacks on them, one of whom needed to have a blood transfusion; while another will require plastic surgery to repair the injury to his arm and may be left with permanent nerve damage.

The court heard how a report prepared by Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Gwilym Hayes details how Taylor admitted to experiencing powerful ‘urges to hurt people for no reason’ and when asked directly, he ‘admitted that in a way it felt good to hurt someone else’.

Judge Richardson said he found Taylor’s admission that ‘it feels good’ to hurt someone ‘particularly chilling’.

“There is a very high risk of you committing serious acts of violence in the future,” added Judge Richardson.

Dr Hayes’ report continued: “He [Taylor] said he would occasionally look at someone and experience ‘an uncontrollable urge to do something’.”

“Generally, he can ignore this but when he is angry for some other reason this becomes more difficult, and he is much more prone to act on such impulses. He does not seem to experience any profound remorse for his actions and there appears to be at least a relative degree of failure of empathy.”

Taylor’s case was opened earlier this month, following his guilty pleas for numerous charges including wounding with intent, possession of an offensive weapon, robbery and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

During the course of the previous hearing, the court heard how Taylor had been subjected to what Judge Richardson described as an ‘deplorable upbringing’.

Judge Richardson said he had been considering handing Taylor, who suffered from ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) as a child, a life sentence for his crimes.

But, after hearing of the treatment Taylor endured during his formative years, Judge Richardson said he wanted more time to consider whether a life sentence was an appropriate punishment, and adjourned sentence until August 30.

Judge Richardson told Taylor during the concluded hearing: “This is a case where your parents demonstrated, without any shadow of doubt, a complete and cruel ineptitude at anything approaching the outer reaches of acceptable parenting. They displayed abject neglect and, on occasion, a level of cruelty.”

He added: “The opinion of Dr Hayes was that you have an anti-social personality disorder with an associated trait of being emotionally unstable. He is also of the opinion that there is residual ADHD. This is all further complicated by heavy cannabis use.”

Judge Richardson said he had given ‘the most anxious consideration’ to whether Taylor, of no fixed abode, should be given a life sentence, adding that he was mindful of Taylor’s age and considered the fact Dr Hayes had observed Taylor as having the ‘desire to change’ as being ‘of importance’.

“It is hoped that therapy will change this situation, but plainly that would take a very long time,” he said.

“I have public protection at the forefront of my thinking,” the judge added.

Judge Richardson told Taylor that ultimately he had decided to ‘pull-back’ from imposing a life sentence.

He added: “I want to make it very clear to you that you have escaped a life sentence by the narrowest of margins.”

“This case is truly on the threshold of such a sentence. It is your age that has caused me to reflect the most on that course of action. I am very conscious that a life sentence is a sentence of last resort,” the judge said.

He continued: “There is no greater recipe for catastrophe as an adult than a violent and disordered upbringing. You are a victim of your past. That does not excuse what you have done. It, however, explains much of your conduct.”