Horrific stabbing of teacher shows we need to ban 1 thing immediately in UK schools

When John Hopkin found his wife Liz with blood pumping from her neck, having been stabbed by a 13-year-old pupil at the school they both worked at, he feared she would die. The lethal weapon - a multi-tool knife with a two-and-a-half-inch blade that also left the victim with deep wounds in her leg and back - belonged to the child's father. During her trial at Swansea Crown Court, it emerged that the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been carrying a knife since primary school.

In her first interview following the potentially fatal attack at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman in Carmarthenshire in April 2024, Mrs Hopkin says she "could never" return to work. She can no longer so much as walk past a school. Meanwhile, her teenage attacker has been detained for 15 years. The usual hot air and waffle have been spouted. A disturbed childhood, mental health issues and an obsession with Hitler, weapons and war were among the child's problems.

I'm not buying that is to blame. So who or what is? Our hopeless government, for neglecting societal needs? Our social services, if we can call them that - who are admittedly atrociously underfunded? The education department, for employing woefully few psychologists?

It is reckoned that every secondary school in the land has between 70 and 80 pupils in need of high-level support. Let's do the maths. There are 3,628 state-funded secondary schools in England and Wales. At a conservative estimate, that's 253,960 vulnerable children. In November 2024, there were 2,700 educational psychologists employed by local authorities across England.

The figures do not include fee-paying schools, nor the approximately 176 secondary establishments in Wales. Even so, it's obvious the workforce is not fit for purpose.

Yes, we can blame any and all of the above. They have all played, and continue to play, their part in a monstrous, life-threatening failure. But we must also acknowledge the prodigious pachyderm in the room, a weapon every inch as deadly as a razor-edged blade: the mobile phone.

Start by banning these devices nationally. Immediately. They have wrought more damage on children's minds than any other invention in human history. They expose them to violence, perversion, pornography and degradation, until they are numbed senseless and immune.

Once they disengage from morality, carrying a knife around school - for self-protection, to impress friends, bully others and get their own back on teachers - seems like child's play. Teaching careers are destroyed. Childhoods are extinguished. Innocent people die. So where are the parents?

Between school and university, my son took a gap year to work as a teaching assistant in a south London sink school. Some of its pupils lived in homes without running water.

It boasted airport-grade security, yet still the knives got in. My child, a 6ft 4ins rugby prop, was often made to sit on somebody else's child until the cops rocked up to intervene. My heart was in my mouth that year. It still is.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I wish I had a quid for the number of times I have been asked, in relation to my imminent book Love, Freddie revealing that Freddie Mercury fathered a secret daughter, why now?

Thirty years after the flamboyant Queen frontman's death from AIDS-related illness, his hitherto-unknown only child and next of kin shared with me his 17 notebooks, which he had given her for safekeeping four months before he died. They contain in eye-popping detail and in his own words, the unexpurgated story of his life.

To say that the account differs substantially from some by others of his acquaintance would be an understatement. Freddie's daughter is now a 48-year-old medical professional and mother of two.

She lives quietly in Europe. She declines to reveal her identity for fear of disrupting her family's private life. She came forward to dispel the many myths and lies, and to restore Freddie's memory before his story is lost forever.

However long it takes to emerge, the truth always counts.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Standing in the post office queue this week, I got chatting with three tiny children waiting patiently with their dad in front of me. Suddenly, the smallest boy pointed at me animatedly.

"You're a Christian!" he exclaimed, waggling his finger at the crucifix around my neck. 'Yes, I am!' I replied. He looked pleased with himself. It is often blared that Christianity in particular and religious belief in general are in decline here. Fewer than half of us are said to identify as Christian.

The era when to be British meant to be a member of the Church of England, when we were automatically listed on official forms as such unless we specified otherwise, is long gone.

Many blame the pandemic for the drop in church attendance. As a churchwarden at St Bride's, the so-called "journalists' church" on London's Fleet Street, I can report that we are witnessing the opposite.

And if the enduring symbol of Christ's death to save mankind is instantly recognisable to a four-year-old, I'd say there is hope.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A student at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, has demanded reimbursement of her tuition fees, protesting that her tutors have been found to be using AI.

"They tell us not to use it, but they are using it themselves!" she seethes. "AI tools make us better at our jobs," the professors retort.

Hypocritical? What goes around tends to come around. AI technology will soon take the tutors' jobs outright. By training his own replacement, the tutor is shooting himself in the foot. What did he expect?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PIC OF HARRY PLS

Whether or not Darling Boy Prince Harry is granted an audience with Pa, aka His Majesty the King, when he returns to the homeland on the third anniversary of the death of his greatly missed grandmother, to attend a Wellchild charity awards ceremony, I'm guessing most of us couldn't give a wooden monkey's.

Enough of him, his entitled court appeals, his moaning, his duchess, her flaming jam and their Netflix megadeals. It's not British and it's all too much.

I wish neither them nor their children, little Archie and Lilibet, any harm. Of course not. It's just that I'm bored to the molars by them. Aren't you? What happens in Montecito really ought to stay in Montecito. So should Harry.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Do you, as I do, take tea bags with you when you travel? M&S Empress Grey for morning and Pukka Chamomile, Vanilla and Manuka Honey to knock me out at night, since you ask. It works.

Your common or garden, sawdusty chamomile teabag, the kind available in hotel rooms but which tastes as though it has been hanging around since last year, will not do. As my dear mother would say, it's my funeral.

It's not about a craving for a taste of home. I'm by no means the kind to cart Marmite, Heinz ketchup or Branston on my jaunts, and I'm more than happy to "eat foreign". But apparently there are people who go further than that.

A new poll by potato brand Nanna Tate finds that 18% of travellers miss their chips so badly while away that they pack a supply in their suitcases. I kid you not! Those polled also confessed their absent longing for a good old Sunday roast and fish and chips. I mean, why board the plane?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It's been a pleasure standing in for the late, great James Whale these last three weeks. Next week you've got your new Monday columnist, JJ Anisobi, to look forward to. Wishing him the best of British and see you all soon.