September 11, 2025

The Ammanford School Stabbings #3

30 minutes

BLOG PODS #39 - The Ammanford School Stabbings #3 - Facts After the Musings and some Suggestions to Help

INTRODUCTION

On 24th April 2024 at about 11am a 13 year old stabbed two teachers and a fellow pupil at Dyffryn Amman School in Ammanford in Carmarthenshire. Mercifully, none of the injuries were life-altering but, one teacher who intervened suffered neck injuries which easily could have been life-threatening, if not fatal.

Since then the local safeguarding children board and associated professionals convened a Multi-Agency Professional Forum (MAPF) and subsequently published a report.

Having raised a number of questions in the last post, I wanted to see what, if any, answers we might get from knowing a little more - particularly about the girl involved.

Questions we raised

- What kind of girl was she?

- What did a ‘good day’ look like for her?

- Did she have friends; could she fit in or was she isolated.

- Who liked her?

- What was she good at?

- Did she have aspirations or plans for the future? (having asked for help?)

- Why was she bullied and what was done to support her?

- Why might her father have refused an early help assessment

- When were her ‘unusual’ interests first noticed, by whom and what was done?

- What aspects of her presentation caused others to think she was ‘odd?’

And, perhaps more importantly:

- Had she asked for help? If so, what did she think would help her? Was any attempt made to get this for her?

- Who did she trust at school? Were there adults she could speak to? Did she speak to anyone?

- Why did she dress like she did? Did this provide any insight into her internal world?

- What is her experience of ‘home’ like?

- What do we know about why she took a knife to school on this and previous occasions?

- Why was she not excluded and things escalated given the repeated nature of the behaviour?

- What was the narrative in the school - playground and staffroom - about her as a person, pupil, friend…?

And on it goes - the questions are legion!

Mercifully, the review report gives a far more balanced, understanding and humane summary of her character and experiences - something the press could learn from…

All about the girl - insights from the review

In between drafting my initial thoughts on this and publishing it, the review of the incidents was published (27 August 2025).

Without trawling over it all, I thought it was worth listing here some of the findings from the review that give insight into the subjective experience of this young girl.

I’ve limited my list to things specifically cited in the review report - all items are quoted exactly unless stated otherwise or indicated with brackets [ ]. All bold emphases are mine. In each case I’ve listed the page number for reference.

- She experienced bullying around potential neurodiversity (p.4)

- Showed signs of autism: low moods, tics, tip-toeing, cracking fingers, self-harming and escapism through made-up stories (p.4)

- Traumatic separation from birth mother (parental separation) (p.4)

- Witnessing violence towards her father from Mum’s new partner (p.4)

- Apologised to [her father] and was extremely distressed about what happened (after the incident - p.5)

- [She was] quirky, rebellious about uniform and had difficulties making friends (p.5)

- She had an orange marker for social needs, meaning she may have had previous emotional/behavioural concerns but was not one of the pupils requiring urgent consideration (in a review of children’s plans - p.5)

- Paraphrased: She took herself off to an old hall where pupils go at break times with permission from their head of year. She didn’t have this permission but went there. Teacher 1 (a victim) removed her from the hall on more than one occasion. The girl challenged this.

- The review stated in the Victim Perspective and Reflections section, that: ‘It seemed that being allowed to be in the hall was very important to child A – could she have been allowed to stay in the Hall with the others? Would that have made her feel safer and have helped with any social/friendship challenges she may have been experiencing?’ (p.6)

- Troubled childhood (p.7)

- Fracture parental relationships (p.7)

- Lack of a consistent, secure and stable maternal figure in her life (p.7)

- Exposure to domestic abuse [several with Police involvement between birth and being 8 years old] (p.7)

- Her emotional state deteriorated as she progressed through primary school…(p.8)

- [and] she experienced even greater difficulties in her secondary school days (p.8)

- Adolescence is likely to have added to her pre-existing emotional state (p.8)

- An assessment or specific diagnosis for neurodiversity was not carried out (though a CAMHS letter 2 years previously indicated the presence of traits that might be indicative of such - p.8)

- Child A is described by education staff as capable and bright academically with no additional learning needs support required (p.8)

- She struggled in her first secondary school, which was a Welsh speaking school. Child A was adamant for some time that she did not wish to speak Welsh and eventually moved to a school where this was not required (p.8)

[ - She had] unusual interests in war memorabilia, Hitler, a fascination with weapons and purporting to speak German and Russian (p.8)

- She was an Army cadet, which father said she loved, and this may have fed her fascination with things related to the war, weapons and conflict (p.8)

- Her father describes her as loving to read, research things and having a fertile imagination, creating fantasies (p.8)

- A CAMHS School in Reach consultation, the school described her as showing distinctive behaviours that made her stand out from peers developmentally (p.8)

Other insights from the review

These things I feel may have impacted the outcome (the incident) but are issues separate from the characteristics of the girl herself (not verbatim unless in ‘‘).

‘Historical behaviours in relation to risk of harm to others were discussed within the initial CAMHS assessment in February 2022, before the timeline for this report, with no further action taken in relation to this risk’ (p.9)

In early 2022 her father completed and returned an autism screening tool which suggested further assessment was indicated…

…A strategy meeting in October 2023 (at least 18 months later!) records that the school were going to follow this up - but there is no evidence this happened

A referral to PREVENT was discussed but never made - following the first knife incident in Sept. 2023 (p.8)

Instead, an assessment for early help to better understand her needs was offered; her father declined (p.8)

There is no information about whether or not she was on the waiting list for ASD assessment - which is several years long any any case (p.10)

‘There is a pattern throughout the review of agency records of child A and her father receiving some offers of help and support that were declined or not followed up.’ (p.10)

Domestic violence incidents recorded by Children’s Service over a 10 year period were considered to be of a lower-level and ‘not viewed as prolific in their frequency’ (p.10)

Children’s Services encountered problems with engagement by the father and the child, but the presenting issues were not felt to merit statutory involvement (p.10)

Father’s lack of engagement with early help was not fed back to the Central Referral Team for further analysis. If it had, a different level of help may have been offered (p.10)

Police took the girls allegations of bullying seriously and dealt with her appropriately (p.10)

Agencies’ assessments and plans do not include input from the mother and no evidence exists to suggest this was sought (p.10)

‘On occasions, there is evidence of a lack of ‘professional curiosity’ around child A’s presentation, her history and how it may have been affecting her as an adolescent.’ (p.11)

Overall, the lessons for agencies to learn echo those of a myriad previous enquiries, serious case reviews and child practice reviews.

Obvious blunders

But there are some things that should be normal practice but weren’t. And also there are things that should’ve been place that weren’t.

My take on section 8.2 (p.13)

- Transitions: these are always tricky. But information was not passed on between primary and secondary school. The same thing happened again when she changed secondary schools. Pretty basic.

- Communication/Information sharing: probably the most recurrent ‘finding’ in reviews of this kind… Education, children’s services, CAMHS and the father all had info that, were it viewed together, could well have triggered better help and maybe even averted the horrors that followed.

- Assessments and follow-up actions: quote, ‘There were key points when child A’s needs could have been comprehensively assessed from a cognitive and emotional health and wellbeing perspective, to understand what help and

support she needed and to ensure any potential risks were managed effectively (p.13).’ As well as this, follow-up after and between appointments, and when things got defaulted/declined or were transitioning to another agency, were missed.

Things I’d add to the list of improvements needed:

- Automatic escalation: when cases involve people who 1) won’t engage, 2) fall sub-threshold for Prevent and (3 don’t meet muster for safeguarding, there needs to be an automatic multi-agency forum convened with decision-making powers to intervene.

- Singular digital information: information splitting between different systems always seems to confound matters. Add agency-specific permissions and things get missed, serially. One digital repository for public agency info (police, education, health, social services, youth justice) is the obvious solution. If we can take someone’s heart and lungs out and put a secondhand set in, why the heck can’t we set up a national digital information system that works? The only challenges then are the data-protection implications of multi-agency access…

- Fast-tracking of specific assessments: when cases involve potential risk to the public, a faster route to appropriate assessments should be automatic. examples include:

- Risk assessments - clinical ones, not jumping-through-the-hoops-to-tick-the -box ones. Things like a SAVRY would pull together what’s known and guide ongoing decision-making (see info below).

- Neuro-diversity assessments - ADOS & ADIR trained professionals could be available for deployment when a child’s presentation suggests they may be grappling with a different brain. F-CAMHS teams across the UK could (some might already?) have a workstream that triggers their involvement in such cases. A waiting list of ’several years’ as in this case, is no help at all.

- Ring-fenced funding for safeguarding: I’ve lost count how many times I’ve come across cases which, years ago, would have been opened, investigated and intervened with. Now, in part because funding is so constricted, thresholds have risen and intervention is reluctant - agencies are forced to select only the most obvious, most pressing referrals for action. In the worst areas, there’s even some professional pride in batting cases away (I could name names… :0)

I’ve long felt that youth justice, education CAMHS and the police could work more closely together at the edges of our remits to help mop up cases which risk falling between the stools. YOT prevention work, MAPPAs & MARACs, voluntary, charitable and private agencies, police partnerships and others are already doing some good work on this - there are examples of good practice out there.

We just need to make that the norm.

Final thoughts

My heart goes out to those affected by this terrible incident - I can only imagine how scary and deeply unsettling this must be for them. Only a fool would downplay the impact.

But the review report presents us with a very different child to the one portrayed in the needlessly incendiary and selective press reporting at the time. Indeed, the review described the girl as being, ‘affected by several Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), which we know can have a long-term detrimental impact on a young person’s emotional, social and behavioural development.’ (p.7)

This was a little girl - 10 when the first worrying behaviour emerged - who needed help to feel safe, understand herself and to navigate the world (not least adolescence!) without harm. We failed her.

As usual, the report lauds the professionals’ willingness to learn from all this and work together to avert future tragedies of this type. To my ear this is just more echo, more tired old rhetoric, more future orientation to take us away from the sadness and guilt as quickly as possible.

The plain truth is, we need to see children as children, we need to meet their needs and ensure their safety. In short, we need do whatever it takes and spend whatever it costs to help kids develop well and fulfil their potential. Because, as Richard Rohr wisely said,…**

‘If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.’

I think that’s what happened in Ysgol Duffryn Aman. See you in the next one!

#helpnotpunishment

Listen on SPOTIFY here

More information:

Since this post was drafted the review report from the Multi-Agency Professional Forum (MAPF) has been published - a separate blog post coming on this very shortly.

A Spring Within Us (2018 - link)

MAPF REPORT: MAPF Incident Review – Ysgol Duffryn Aman (link) Blog post on this coming soon…

RESEARCH QUOTED IN THE MAPF REPORT: Adverse and positive childhood experiences, and their association with children’s involvement in violence (link)

PREVENT & CHANNEL PANEL: Factsheet 2024 (link)

SAVRY: Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (link). I my view, this is a great tool. Lots of clinicians and others are trained to use it, so delays are not built-in - doing more of these would provide useful structure to lots of cases where vagaries and splintered information add to the complexities.

BOOK: A really good reference for all things autism and legal - Autism and the Law: Navigating a Legal Minefield by Adam Feinstein (link)

BOOK: Children As Risk by Anne-Marie MacAlinden (link) best book I’ve read on risk as it relates to children. It’s about HSB/CSE but the principles speak to ‘child crime’ in general, in my view. More a criminological read than a practice one.

LECTURE: Dr Gwen Adshead - Reith Lecture 2024 #1 (This is brilliant! (link)

BOOK: What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing by Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey (link)

BOOK: Working with Troubled Children and Teenagers by Jonny Matthew (link)