Huddersfield stabbing: Community's safety fears after schoolboy's death

Parents and children, many of them in tears, walk up the hill leading to North Huddersfield Trust School, outside which a teenage student was fatally stabbed less than 24 hours before.

Some sob as they place cards or a single flower at the site of the blue and white police cordon which remains firmly in place on a traffic chicane outside the school.

The number of floral tributes continues to grow as the local community comes together in grief and shock.

One of the tributes reads: "Another young life taken way too soon over hideous nonsense. Deepest sympathy to the young boy's mother and family."

A label on another bunch of flowers reads: "May you fly with the angels. RIP. Sorry for your loss."

Pupils from the school have been brought to the cordon by their families, including Alfie and Ruben, who leave flowers at the scene with their mothers.

Ruben, 12, says he and his friends have been left "traumatised" by what has happened, while Alfie, also 12, describes the boy who died as "a very popular kid".

On Thursday afternoon, police vans remain parked on the hill and police tape at another cordon can be seen at the entrance of an alley further up the road.

Lucy Smith, who lives near the school and who stops to attach some flowers and a poem to the railings next to the cordon, says there is a "feeling of unsafety" following the fatal stabbing of the teenage boy.

Ms Smith, who has two teenage children, says: "I think we are all in shock really and saddened. It's very hard to make sense of it."

Afiya Mahmood, who lives nearby on one of the residential streets surrounding the school entrance and who witnessed the aftermath of the stabbing, shakes and sobs as she recalls seeing paramedics at the scene.

She says: "It's extremely distressing. You don't expect it to happen so close to home.

"I'm so shocked these perpetrators did this in daylight, with loads of people around. They just didn't care."

North Huddersfield Trust School is surrounded by residential streets, many with leafy gardens, and from the school gates the skyline of Huddersfield town centre can be seen.

Drivers slow down as they pass the police cordon outside the school and watch people stopping to pay their respects.

Billy Shankland, laying flowers at the scene with his son, who is also a pupil at the school, says the stabbing there is "worrying and scary".

"You don't know if it's targeted or random. Is anywhere a safe area around here?"

Sadly, children at the school have encountered tragedy before.

Sebastian Kalinowski, 15, who was murdered by his mother Agnieszka Kalinowska and stepfather Andrzej Latoszewski in August 2021, was also a student there.

Head teacher Andrew Fell says the school has "lost a wonderful student from our school community" in this latest incident.

A total of 2,399 knife-enabled crimes were reported by West Yorkshire Police in the year ending March 2022, according to Home Office data.

That is up 9% from the year before, but is still below pre-pandemic levels.

Kirklees councillor Amanda Pinnock, who represents the Ashbrow ward where the school is located, says this fatal stabbing shows knife crime in the community needs to be tackled.

"We need to do all we can to stop this happening again," she says.

"Education is definitely an important aspect," she says.

A 16-year-old boy who was arrested on suspicion of murder in Huddersfield in the early hours of Thursday remains in custody, according to West Yorkshire Police.

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