A 15-year-old boy has been sentenced to life with a minimum term of 16 years for murdering Sheffield schoolboy Harvey Willgoose in a lunch break knife attack.

Harvey, also 15, was stabbed twice in the chest by Mohammed Umar Khan outside their school cafeteria in February this year.

At Sheffield Crown Court, Judge Mrs Justice Ellenbogen told Mohammed Umar Khan his “senseless acts” followed a “long-standing interest in weapons”.

She added the murder had a “devastating effect on Harvey’s family” and their lives have been “blighted by your actions”.

As it happened: How sentencing unfolded

Khan, who can now be named after the judge lifted reporting restrictions, took a 13cm hunting knife with him to All Saints Catholic High School.

CCTV showed Harvey arriving at the school, with earlier footage showing the attacker trying to provoke Harvey, who remained calm.

The attacker was also seen in footage holding a knife in the canteen before the stabbing.

Khan had previously admitted to manslaughter but denied murder. But in August, he was found guilty at Sheffield Crown Court by a majority verdict of 11 to one.

Defence lawyers claimed the boy had “lost control” after years of bullying and “an intense period of fear at school”.

He told teachers after the stabbing “you know I can’t control it” and “I’m not right in the head”.

Doesn’t look like he’s sorry

Speaking outside court, Harvey Willgoose’s mother, Caroline, said she was relieved the case was over.

“I feel like a big weight’s been lifted off my shoulders, to be honest. He [Khan] doesn’t look like he’s sorry but I just hope that’s his mask.”

Caroline Willgoose, whose father died last week, also spoke to Sky News about the anti-knife campaigns she was developing following the death of Harvey.

“He were funny, he were caring, and that’s how I want him to be remembered. I hate him being remembered as the school kid that got stabbed to death in school. He’d hate that.”

Asked about her thoughts of Khan, she said: “I don’t really have any feelings for him. I don’t know whether they’ll come… but I do feel like he’s been let down. They’ve both been let down.”

‘Popular, energetic, full-loving’

Steve Davies, chief executive of St Clare Catholic Multi Academy Trust, which operates All Saints Catholic High School, described Harvey as “a popular, energetic and fun-loving pupil who is dearly missed every day by the whole school community”.

He added: “Our thoughts are first and foremost with Harvey’s family, loved ones and friends. We cannot begin to imagine the depth of their loss and our deepest sympathies go out to them today and every day.

“Since the conclusion of the trial, the school and trust have been able to engage fully with a number of ongoing investigations aimed at answering key questions about Harvey’s tragic death. We will continue to work closely with these partners and cooperate fully with these investigations.”

‘Senseless acts’ had ‘devastating effect’

During sentencing on Wednesday, Judge Mrs Justice Ellenbogen told Khan his “senseless acts have had a devastating effect”.

“Harvey’s family is haunted by the CCTV footage of the events of that day, and, exhausted by the trauma in their lives in which his absence is felt every day.”

“It is clear that Harvey was also a popular pupil whom students and teachers held in affection. Their lives, too have been blighted by your actions, which have affected them deeply and will continue to do so.”

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Mrs Ellenbogen added that Khan had a “long-standing interest in weapons” and images on his mobile phone showed him posing with hunting-style knives, a machete and a hammer.

She told Khan he had a “long-standing inability to manage your anger”, including three separate school incidents between November 2024 and January 2025 in which he had become angry and aggressive.

The judge told him he would serve a minimum term of 16 years minus time spent in custody, which works out at around 15 years, three months. Khan did not show any obvious emotion as the sentence was passed.

Following the murder, the parents of Harvey, Caroline and Mark Willgoose, told Sky News they wanted to see knife arches “in all secondary schools and colleges”.

‘Our mental health has been destroyed’

Ahead of sentencing, Harvey’s sister, Sophie Willgoose, described in her victim impact statement the family’s “world was shattered forever” after they were told about his murder.

She added: “The defendant didn’t just end Harvey’s life, he ended ours too. Our mental health has been destroyed.”

Richard Thyne KC, prosecuting, said that while Khan had no previous convictions, he had previously taken an axe and a knife separately on to the school premises.

Khan and Harvey had “fronted up” to one another in confrontations at school, he added.

Attack was ‘split-second decision’

The detective who led the murder investigation said there was evidence that Khan was friends with Harvey until days before the fatal incident.

Following the trial, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Knowles said a relatively trivial incident had led to a “split-second decision to do something which just had dire and terrible consequences”.

“It was the knife that escalated this so quickly and led to consequences which you can’t undo or take back afterwards,” he added.

Focus on knife crime prevention

Kilvinder Vigurs, South Yorkshire’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, said the trial “marks a difficult moment for our region” and more must be done “to protect our children from the threat of knife crime”.

In a statement, he said: “Knife crime is not just a policing issue, it’s a societal one. Our joint focus must be on prevention, education, and early intervention.”

Baby P’s mother has told the parole board she allowed her partner to abuse her son because she wanted her “Prince Charming”.

It is the first time Tracey Connelly, 44, has spoken publicly about her 17-month-old son Peter’s death at their home in Tottenham, north London, on 3 August 2007 since she was jailed in 2009.

Peter, who suffered more than 50 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken back, was known as Baby P during his mother’s Old Bailey trial, where she initially denied wrongdoing, alongside her boyfriend, Steven Barker, and his brother.

The case sparked outrage as the child was on the at-risk register and received 60 visits from social workers, police and health professionals over eight months.

Connelly was given an indefinite sentence for public protection (IPP) with a minimum term of five years in 2009 after pleading guilty to causing or allowing Peter’s death.

She is making her seventh bid to be released from prison – after being twice recalled over having secret relationships with men she met online – which is being live-streamed from her prison to the International Dispute and Resolution Centre, in London.

Risk to children in her care

She admitted she continues to present a risk to any children in her care, saying: “Given how bad I was at it, I have to accept that’s always a risk if I’m left looking after children, which I can’t see ever being the case.

“Am I a risk to children running down the street? Not at all.”

Connelly, who asked to be called Tracey, could not be seen on screen as she told how her own childhood was “torture”.

“It was extremely traumatic, things that I went through which’s not for public consumption. It was not a life experience I would wish on anyone,” she said.

Connelly said her marriage was on “the last legs” when Peter was born and that she would have loved to “have been a mother where I broke the cycle” but perpetuated it.

She admitted “I was a bad mother” who “failed to protect” Peter after moving Barker into their home before having to take her son to hospital with what she was told were “non-accidental injuries”.

Connelly said “deep down” she knew Barker was abusing him, but was so busy trying to prove all the professionals wrong that “I ignored my gut”.

“There’s a lot more I probably could have done,” she said.

“If I had told the professionals this man was living with me, if I had explained we were more than he was just visiting, there are 101 different things I could have done.

“I’m ashamed to admit I was in my own head, my own bubble, where I wanted my Prince Charming and unfortunately [Peter] paid for that.”

She said her “selfishness” meant Peter was stuck in a “worse situation” which “allowed my son to die”.

Sent back to jail over secret flings

The hearing was told she was first released on licence in 2013, but recalled to prison in 2015 for a breach of conditions after “secretly developing intimate personal relationships” online and had “incited” another resident at her accommodation to “engage in inappropriate behaviour”.

She told the panel she engaged in sexualised chat and sent intimate photos of herself to a man in another country, who didn’t know who she was.

Her applications for release in 2015, 2017 and 2019 were rejected by the board, and while back in custody, she “developed an intimate relationship with another prisoner” which she hid from staff.

She said they would “kiss and cuddle”, but it was “more about friendship”, and she continued the relationship through “jail mail” when they were separated.

Connelly was freed from jail for a second time in July 2022 after the parole board found she was suitable for release, but again recalled to prison in September last year after breaching her licence conditions.

The parole hearing was told she “developed an intimate relationship with a man” she met online and concealed it from parole officers by deleting material from her phone to avoid being detected.

Connelly is allowed to have relationships but must report them.

She told how she met a man on an app, giving him a fake backstory, and again sent intimate photos before they met, went for food, to the cinema and to a hotel for the weekend, where they had sex twice.

Her voice broke with emotion as she said: “If I had to tell him who I was, anyone in their right mind would run a mile”, and “how could I ask anyone to be okay with that?”

Visit to a sex club

Asked if she was “obsessed with sex”, Connelly said it was her way of making “a connection, even if it’s only temporary sometimes”.

She said she was openly bisexual, has an interest in BDSM, and visited a sex club after she was last released from prison.

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Connelly now works on the care and supervision unit as an orderly in prison and is subjected to daily bullying, abuse and threats, including being spat at, her prisoner offender manager (POM) said.

The POM is recommending her re-release, but the application is opposed by Justice Minister David Lammy.

The three panel members, who have seen a 763-page dossier, will decide if she meets the test for release based on an assessment of her “risk to the public” and are expected to make a decision next month.

Statements from members of Peter’s family were not read in public, but the panel chair, Sally Allbeury, said they expressed “concerns about her potential release” and wanted “conditions to be put in place to protect them” if she is freed.

“We found these statements extremely moving. There can be no doubt Peter’s death has caused life-long harm to those who loved him and as such they are also victims of Ms Connelly’s offending,” she said.

Connelly’s boyfriend, Barker, who Peter called “dad”, was jailed for 12 years, and his brother, Jason Owen, was sentenced to six years on appeal after being convicted in relation to Peter’s death.

Their trial heard how Peter was subjected to a series of assaults of increasing violence for up to eight months before his death, and Connelly was described by the sentencing judge as “manipulative and self-centred with a controlling side and a temper” who had prioritised her relationship with her partner.

One of the frontrunners to become chair of the grooming gang inquiry has withdrawn, blaming “vested interests” and “political opportunism and point-scoring”.

Jim Gamble told the home secretary in a letter there was a “highly charged and toxic environment” around the appointment process and victims “deserve better”.

The ex-police chief and child protection specialist said he needed the confidence of victims and survivors, but it was clear “a lack of confidence due to my previous occupation exists among some”.

Speaking to Sky News, he said he originally viewed the job as an “opportunity of a lifetime” but changed his mind due to a “growing level of toxicity” and misinformation.

He said he had more than 20 years’ experience working with abuse survivors and understood the issues involved.

“To imply for one second I would align myself with any political party to hide their blushes is just nonsense,” said Mr Gamble, who added he was stepping back “with a heavy heart”.

In his letter to the home secretary, Mr Gamble said his decision was “reinforced by the highly charged and toxic environment that has surrounded and influenced the appointment process and the impact this has had on those closest to me”.

He added: “Regrettably, the reaction to the appointment process has been defined more by the vested interests of some, as well as political opportunism and point-scoring, rather than by the cross-party consensus required to address such a serious national issue.

“Victims and survivors, who have been let down so often in the past, deserve better than to be used as leverage for short-term gain by anyone.”

Mr Gamble began his career in Northern Ireland, rising to become head of RUC special branch in Belfast.

However, he is best known for his work combating child abuse, and in 2006 headed up the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which revolutionised the approach to policing online child abuse networks.

He was one of two known leading candidates for the role.

The other, Annie Hudson, a former social worker, said earlier this week she no longer wanted to be considered after intense media coverage.

The prime minister launched the inquiry into grooming gangs after an audit by Baroness Louise Casey showed the scale of the problem.

It is understood that the government is exploring a range of other candidates and will provide an update in due course.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The grooming gang scandal was one of the darkest moments in this country’s history.

“That is why this government is committed to a full, statutory, national inquiry to uncover the truth. It is the very least that the victims of these hideous crimes deserve.

“We are disappointed that candidates to chair that inquiry have withdrawn. This is an extremely sensitive topic, and we have to take the time to appoint the best person suitable for the role.

“The home secretary has been clear – there will be no hiding place for those who abused the most vulnerable in our society.”

Inquiry ‘will never be watered down’

It follows exchanges between Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.

Ms Badenoch asked – on behalf of one of the resigned grooming inquiry members – what the point of an inquiry is if they are just ignored.

Mr Starmer said the inquiry “is not and will never be watered down” and that he wanted survivors “to be at the heart of this”.

He added: “I want an inquiry that can get to the truth, these are the hard yards, I accept that. But I want to press on and get this right.”

Asked about Labour’s change in position this year from saying a national inquiry is not necessary to the current situation, the prime minister said: “I want to go as fast as we can to get the justice that is deserved.

“I want to ensure survivors are involved in that, and we’re balancing the two to get this right, and I’ll continue to do so.”

Victim’s father calls for minister to resign

Marlon West, whose daughter Scarlett was a grooming victim who was raped by more than 60 men, has called for safeguarding minister Jess Phillips to resign.

He said he doubted she would, but claimed she “has lost any kind of faith from the public, and more importantly with survivors and families”.

Mr West described the minister in parliament this week as “unprofessional” and “defensive rather than listening to what survivors are saying”.

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He also wants to see an inquiry with family members included, alongside survivors, on the panel, and even though he doesn’t want to be included, he said, “it’s the families who are dealing with the services, not so much the survivors”.

Mr West added: “It’s the parents who are dealing with the police, every single day, and social services. It’s really important that they get family perspective. I think they should start again.”

‘Gaslit and manipulated’

Ellie-Ann Reynolds, who withdrew earlier this week, said as soon as they [victims] found out what the two candidates used to do [police and social work], it “raised red flags” as they were involved with “the two institutions that have failed us”.

Mr Gamble’s decision to withdraw was “the right thing to do”, she said, as victims were “gaslit” and “manipulated” during the process and had “very little faith in authorities and systems”.