A 14-year-old pupil who stabbed his 50-year-old Nigerian teacher, Vincent Uzomah, early in June, was on Monday sentenced to 11 years imprisonment by a Bradford Crown Court in the United Kingdom.
The crime was committed at the Dixons Kings Academy, Bradford, where Uzomah a Nigeria-trained Engineer was a supply (temporary) teacher.
The convict could be released on license in three years.
The court heard that the student – who cannot be named being a minor- not only discussed the stabbing with a friend a day before the incident, but also boasted about it on Facebook and got at least “69 likes.”
Judge Durham Hall described the conduct of those who liked the crime as sick, noting further that “it’s an appalling reflection on a small microcosm of our society that within minutes or hours after posting, 69 people liked. How sick?”
Jailing the boy of Asian descent, Hall told him: “You boasted about it before, you boasted about it after when you had stabbed him.”
The judge added: “What you did to Vincent Uzomah was of such shocking seriousness that this man sitting in court, a God-fearing gentleman, first of all thought he was going to die.”
He specifically noted that, “you have, by your actions, changed his life.”
The prosecutor, Jonathan Sharp, told the court that “the Crown’s case in consequence is that the attack was, at least in part, racially motivated.”
Sharp said that prior to the day of the attack, the teenager had told a friend that he was planning to stab a teacher and then followed this up by taking a knife with a “substantial blade ” into school on June 11, when he then knifed the teacher in the stomach, after the latter asked him to bring his mobile phone – to prevent causing disruption in the science lesson.
Sharp said also that on the morning that Uzomah was stabbed in the classroom , the boy , according to witnesses , was “getting angry, red in the face and putting his head down and muttering the words bastard ,” among others.
Speaking after the boy was jailed, the Nigerian who was in court with his wife, said: “As a Christian, I have forgiven this boy who inflicted this pain and trauma on myself and my family.”
The boy, meanwhile, yawned as the sentence was being read.
Uzomah , in a prepared statement, said he prayed that the boy would use the opportunity presented to him to change his life.
Prior to stabbing Uzomah, the boy already had a criminal record.
Author: Chief Editor
Nigerian Community,News, Events and more
