UK Edition
Ann Maguire's schoolboy killer planned to kill two more teachers, inquest hears
A 15-year-old boy who stabbed Ann Maguire to death in her classroom planned to kill two more teachers including one who was pregnant because he wanted to kill her baby, an inquest has heard.
Will Cornick showed other pupils the 13in long kitchen knife he brought into school and told a number of children about his plans ahead of his attack on Mrs Maguire at Corpus Christi Catholic College, in Leeds.
Extracts of the teenagers' statements were read out at the inquest into Mrs Maguire's death at Wakefield Coroner's Court on Tuesday.
One teenager told police: "He showed me the knife. "He like smiled and pulled out, like, a Jack Daniels bottle and said 'it's like a party - party drink' and, like, laughed."
Another said: "He was sort of saying he looked at the human body and how to kill people because he wanted to kill them fast."
The pupil said Cornick told him this was so he could go from Mrs Maguire to other teachers - Miss Miley, who was pregnant, and Mr Kellett.
The boy said in his statement: "He was going to stab Miss Miley in the stomach because she was pregnant and wanted to kill the baby instead."
He told officers Cornick said he was going to stab Mr Kellett in the throat because he wanted to go to prison.
Nick Armstrong, representing Mrs Maguire's husband, Don, and their four children, told the court that, on the morning of the attack, Cornick told 10 students about the knife and three of these saw at least part of it, yet none of them reported it.
One pupil told teacher Emma Conway about seeing the knife only after the incident, he said. Mr Armstrong asked Ms Conway why she thought none of them reported it before the attack.
Ms Conway said: "I've no idea. I don't know why any one of them wouldn't have done." She added: "It beggars belief that they wouldn't share that information.
"It's shocking." Speaking to Wakefield Coroners' Court via Skype, Ms Conway said the incident had made her question her relationship with pupils.
She said: "You may feel you have a feel for them but then they turn round and become incomprehensibly violent. It's something that terrifies me, it haunts me.
"I would never have thought that someone so polite and quiet and well-mannered would dream of doing anything so horrific."
Ms Conway said she taught Cornick art and described him as "very creative, very good at drawing, quiet but respectful, slightly unusual".
She agreed he had "considerable ability as an artist". The teacher said: "He was very quiet and seemed to hide under his hair a lot."
Ms Conway said Mrs Maguire, who had taught at Corpus Christi for 41 years, as "a highly regarded teacher".
She said: "She was well-liked, very experienced, very lovely, like a mother figure."
Cornick was jailed for life for Mrs Maguire's murder in April 2014 and told he must serve a minimum of 20 years in custody.
A statement from Cornick's father Ian was also read to the inquest. He said that his son did play violent video games but knew the difference between "fantasy and reality".
He added that his son was diagnosed with type one diabetes aged 12 and after that became withdrawn and less tolerant of other people.
Cornick spent the weekend prior to the murder with his father.
Mr Cornick said: "It was and exceptionally ordinary and nice weekend, unremarkable with Will behaving exactly as I would expect him to behave.”
Mr Cornick visits his son monthly in prison, where he says Will feels "scared" and "isolated".
“He very much regrets what he did and is desperate to find a route to getting better,” said Mr Cornick.
His mother Michelle stated that Cornick wanted to drop Spanish to do extra art study, but this request was refused by Mr Kellett and Mrs Maguire.
She added: "I asked Mrs Maguire to make sure was not not alone with him as their relationship had broken."
"I simply meant that it would be unproductive to talk with Will alone as he had made his mind up. I did not mean he would be violent or anything of that sort."