Will Cornick: The boy who killed his teacher, and a conundrum for the prison system

How he came to murder Ann Maguire – a popular
teacher at his school, against whom he held a
murderous grudge – remains a mystery to his
family and those closest to him.

What to do with the 16-year-old murderer will
now exercise social workers and the prisons
system for at least the next 20 years. He might
never be released from jail and his prospects,
should he ever be – based on the evidence of past
cases – could be grim.

The naming of Cornick, and the length of sentence
that he received, was criticised yesterday by
campaigners for youth offenders who said they
would see him detained for decades in a system ill-
suited for rehabilitation.

“I don’t think a child – and he was a child – should
get a life sentence because they are young, their
brain is not mature and a life sentence is
indeterminate, it could last forever. I think no
other western European country would impose a
life sentence on a teenager,” said Penelope Gibbs,
who chairs the Standing Committee for Youth
Justice (SCYJ), an umbrella group of charities and
campaign groups.

“Do we want him to be rehabilitated? Do we want
him to leave prison with the lowest risk possible of
causing more harm to others? Yes. How long do we
need to achieve that, rather than how long do we
need to punish him for? We do need to punish him
but I think to punish him for longer than he’s been
alive for is disproportionate.”

He will be one of just 16 other children in custody
for murder in a detention system that houses more
children – more than 1,400 in the UK according to
2012 figures – than any European nation other
than Turkey. Britain is considered to have one of
the most punitive systems for children in Europe
with the lowest ages of criminal responsibility of
ten in England and Wales, and eight in Scotland.
Only Switzerland has a comparable age of
responsibility, according to a study by the Council
of Europe. Even so, the number of young offenders
has been slashed from more than 3,000 six years
ago after a change in police targets culture that
saw teens picked up as a matter of routine for
minor offences to boost clear-up rates.

Cornick could now be detained in a secure
children’s home, which tend to be for the most
troubled and damaged youngsters. The home was
the initial destination for the two 10-year-old boys
convicted of murdering James Bulger on
Merseyside in 1993.

Alternatively, he could go to a specialist unit at a
young offender’s institute – such as the Keppel
Unit at Wetherby prison that was described in a
prison inspector’s report as a model for the
treatment of young offenders. It holds about 48
children aged 15-18 who were some of the “most
challenging and vulnerable” people in the country
but is the only one of its kind in the country.
It is clear that any attempt to rehabilitate him will
be a monumental task. After the attack, he told
psychiatrists he “could not give a shit” about the
grief of his victim’s family. “In my eyes,
everything I’ve done is fine and dandy,” he told
experts.

He is unlikely to get the academic stimulation of
his previous studies. Cornick could be taught in a
class of around eight people with a focus on basic
literacy, numeracy and vocational skills to get a
job when they were finally released. He took and
passed five GCSEs a year early, but he will be
unlikely to be able to study for higher level
qualifications now.

Harry Fletcher, a criminal justice expert and
director of the anti-online abuse charity Digital
Trust, said: “I think that the judge really had no
choice but to give him a lengthy sentence, because
the possibility of him voluntarily taking part in
any rehabilitation processes at the moment is
really rather slim.

“He’s been on remand for quite some time and all
the people who work with him say he hasn’t shown
any remorse at all. Given the sentencing
guidelines, the judge’s hands were fairly tied.
“The notion that he might never get out I was
surprised about, because who knows what he’ll be
like in 20 years? He may have come to terms with
it, be grief-stricken – we just don’t know. But it is
going to be extremely difficult to manage him,
given that he is saying it was justified. It’s possible
that he will develop a full-blown personality
disorder, which will mean rehabilitation is
extremely difficult if not impossible.

He added: “On the other hand, he might be
working with therapists, psychologist and
psychiatrists with whom he can bond, and that
improvements are made. But pre-meditated killing
at 15 – you don’t want to damn him now as having
no hope, but the prospects aren’t brilliant.”