Teen gets life for schoolboy’s murder

THE British schoolboy killer who knifed 14-year-old Luke Walmsley to death outside a classroom in front of a crowd of horrified pupils was detained for life yesterday.

Alan Pennell, a 16-year-old bully with a history of violence, stabbed the younger boy through the heart at Birkbeck Secondary School in North Somercotes, Lincolnshire.

A day after he was found guilty of murdering Luke by a jury at Nottingham Crown Court, it was recommended that he serve a minimum of 12 years.

The judge lifted a media ban on naming Luke’s killer and told Pennell he had gone to school on the day of the murder armed with a “wicked” weapon and intent on harming his victim.

Sentencing the boy, Mr Justice Goldring said: “I am conscious that nothing will bring Luke back.

“For Luke’s parents, for whom this case must have been agony, no time will be long enough.”

The jury who convicted Pennell yesterday were unaware of his violent background. Pennell frightened many of his school peers and had already been warned by police for assaulting a fellow pupil.

He had an obsession with violent films and kept a collection of knives at his home in Grainthorpe, Lincolnshire.

He was often left to his own devices and spent much of his youth getting drunk and hanging around with a succession of girls.

One of those girlfriends was Luke Walmsley’s 12-year-old sister, Lauren.

He appeared jealous of popular sportsman Luke, who had a happy family background. He fell out with Luke after his relationship with Lauren came to an end and began boasting that he would kill the younger teenager.

Pennell denied murdering Luke, claiming his victim walked into the locking flick knife he had brought into school on the day of the murder.

He was a surly and headstrong teenager whose mother was tragically killed in a car crash, along with her boyfriend, when Alan was just four, leaving him with his father, who worked as a lorry driver and was often away from home.

Luke’s parents, Jayne and Paul, who sat throughout the 13-day trial, sobbed as Pennell was taken down to the cells.

The court heard the teenager delivered a forceful and deliberate blow to Luke’s chest after arming himself with the flick knife on November 4 last year.

He was knifed once in the chest as he chatted about football after a lesson and collapsed a short time later.

Luke’s parents wept in the packed public gallery as they watched CCTV footage during the trial showing their son staggering along the school corridor holding his chest.