Hundreds of people have attended a march in memory of a 15-year-old boy stabbed to death at his school – ahead of a tribute by his football club, Sheffield United.

Harvey Willgoose died on Monday after he was attacked at All Saints Catholic School in the city.

Dozens of people have left flowers and messages outside the school since his death.

Harvey was an avid Sheffield United fan and football shirts, scarves and messages have been left for him outside the stadium in the city.

One message written on a Sheffield United shirt reads: “RIP Harvey. Forever in our hearts.”

Harvey’s friends joined Sheffield United supporters and others affected by his death at Sheffield Town Hall to march to the ground ahead of the match against Portsmouth at 3pm on Saturday.

One black and white banner with a picture of Harvey inside the Sheffield United logo read: “Lives not knives. It’s not OK.”

The march was supported by Sheffield anti-knife crime charity Always An Alternative.

At the game, play was stopped and applause broke out in the 15th minute, as fans and players paid tribute.

Fans also stopped for a similar tribute at West Bromwich Albion’s ground The Hawthorns for their game against Sheffield Wednesday.

Earlier on Saturday churches in the city held services to commemorate the teenager.

Mark McManus, the parish priest at St Joseph’s church in Handsworth, Sheffield, said: “Harvey was a former pupil of St Joseph’s Academy and, along with the members of our community who attend All Saints High School, many will have been affected by his death – some very closely.”

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In a statement released by police, Harvey’s family said their lives would “never be the same again” and they were “utterly heartbroken”.

Paying tribute, Harvey’s sister Sophie Willgoose said: “My heart is broken into a million pieces.”

A 15-year-old boy charged with murdering Harvey has been remanded into youth detention accommodation.

The defendant, who cannot be named because of his age, appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday charged with murder, possession of a bladed article and affray.

A trial date has been fixed for 30 June.

The parents of two of the girls murdered at a dance class in Southport have spoken of the moment they were told “something awful has happened” to their children.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the parents of Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe paid tribute to their daughters, while recalling what happened on 29 July 2024.

Warning: Some readers may find this article distressing

Describing the moment she dropped her daughter off at the two-hour workshop at Hart Space studio, Jenni Stancombe said she watched Elsie run inside, excited to show her friend her newly pierced ears.

“I watched her sit down and waved her off and I left her,” she said.

Just before midday, Ms Stancombe got a call from another mother, telling her: “Something awful has happened. Somebody’s stabbed the kids.

“I said, ‘What do you mean?'” Ms Stancombe said. “She went, ‘It’s really bad. You need to get here’.

“I just ran. I left the whole house open and got in the car.”

Bebe King’s parents – who cannot be named for legal reasons – had been busily preparing for a wedding the following day.

Her mother remembers being in Marks & Spencer when she received a phone call from her husband, who had arrived early to collect Bebe.

“I was about to put my card in the machine, and he called. ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you this but somebody has gone into the dance class with a knife’,” she said.

She ran outside and jumped into a taxi. The driver dropped her off at the end of the street – “and I just ran”.

Parents’ tributes to children

Bebe’s parents came up with her name after a trip to Hollywood, where they saw the blues guitarist BB King’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bebe King’s mother said of her daughter: “She would come out with the most random stuff. She would do it and look at you and laugh as if to say, ‘I’m dead funny, aren’t I?’ She would give you this hug and say, ‘I love you, momma’.

“She was the best. She was just … Me and her had our own little language. Sometimes we would just look at each other and know what each other was thinking.”

She said Bebe “had this innate kindness. She had a spark”.

Ms Stancombe said it was an honour to be Elsie’s mother. “Everything she did was pure enthusiasm. It could be the most boring thing – even, like, David taking the bins out – and it was like, ‘I’ll come!’ She was grateful for life.”

She described her daughter as “highly intelligent” but said she struggled with reading and writing. Leanne Lucas, who ran the dance workshop, had been Elsie’s private tutor for 18 months.

She had originally missed out on a spot at the dance workshop, which had quickly sold out. One of her school friends was going to the class and her mother messaged Ms Stancombe saying, “Have you got her a space?”

“And I was like, “Oh no’. I knew it had sold out, so I messaged Leanne saying, ‘Aw, I totally forgot to pay for Elsie’. And she messaged saying: ‘No problem. I’ll always have a place for Elsie.’ And she kept one. I just always think if she’d given it away…”

Rioting in Southport

The families were told to come off their social media accounts after riots broke out in Southport, and Elsie’s father and uncle Chris visited the wreckage of the riots the following day.

Neither wanted to comment on the rioting that followed their children’s deaths. Instead, both families paid tribute to the community that rallied around them in the wake of the tragedy.

“It’s about this community. It has brought light in the darkness, these little moments. And that’s what we’re constantly looking for right now.”

Bebe’s family spent the following week with her in a bereavement suite at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool. On the last day, her mother and father did a final bedtime routine, reading her Jack and the Beanstalk before they left.

No funeral director would accept money, while donations and support flooded in for the families.

Bebe had a white horse and carriage. “It’s not very us,” her parents told the Sunday Times while laughing, “but it was for her and we knew she would want that.”

Royal Family brought ‘genuine comfort’

The efforts of the Royal Family brought “genuine comfort” to both families, they told the Sunday Times.

Mr Stancombe said the visit by the Princess of Wales – her first public engagement since finishing chemotherapy – “meant a great deal to Jenni”.

“I won’t say what they said to us, but what they shared with us was really, really powerful, and it was a powerful message and heartfelt, and it meant a lot,” he said.

The families also met the King at Clarence House in August.

“We could see how much he cared,” Mr Stancombe said, laughing about the moment Elsie’s sister offered the King a biscuit.

‘Highly likely’ killer will never be released

Axel Rudakubana was jailed in January for a minimum term of 52 years after he pleaded guilty to murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe, six, and Elsie, seven, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

Rudakubana also admitted trying to murder eight other children, as well as instructor Leanne Lucas and businessman John Hayes, on 29 July last year.

He was 17 years old when he walked into the dance studio, indiscriminately stabbing his victims with a 20cm blade he had bought on Amazon.

He was given 13 life sentences, with Mr Justice Goose saying the killings had caused “shock and revulsion” around the nation and said it was “highly likely” he would never be released.

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During sentencing he was twice ordered out of the dock after trying to disrupt proceedings, by shouting that he “felt ill”.

The court heard emotional statements from victims and families, with Ms Lucas who was stabbed in the back, saying she couldn’t give herself “compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died?”.

The incident was not labelled a terror attack, although officers later found a plastic box containing the toxin ricin under his bed in the village of Banks, Lancashire, along with other weapons including a machete and arrows.

His devices revealed an obsession with violence, war and genocide, and he was found to be in possession of an al Qaeda training manual. It fell outside the definition of terrorism because police couldn’t identify the killer’s motive.

Families did not want sentencing televised

Neither family was in court when Rudakubana suddenly changed his plea to guilty.

Both families did not want the sentencing televised, while Bebe’s family believe details about her injuries went beyond what was necessary.

“The sentencing shouldn’t have been televised,” Elsie’s uncle Chris says. Bebe’s father agreed: “We know it has to be heard in court but why did the whole nation need to see it on television?”

Both talked about their struggle to adapt to a new life without their daughters. Mr Stancombe worked as a postman – he described how he would drop the post off at Elsie’s school and she would run over at lunchtime with her friends to say hello.

None of the parents have gone back to work yet, but Mr and Ms Stancombe have set up a charity – Elsie’s Story, to help other children in need.

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They may not purr like a well-tuned diesel, but Pet Valu has added two brand-new, whisper-quiet Volvo VNR Electric semi trucks to its growing logistics fleet as part of the company’s ongoing effort to transform its supply chain into one that’s more efficient, and more sustainable.

Pet Valu is one of Canada’s leading specialty retailers, offering a wide variety of pet food, toys, and and other fur-and-feather friendly supplies to keep pets healthy and happy. Part of the company’s efforts to deliver on that happy/healthy promise is in reducing ground-level air pollution, and these new, zero-tailpipe emission electric semi trucks will help Pet Valu achieve that vision.

“At Pet Valu, we are committed to continuously improving how we serve devoted pet lovers and their pets,” explains Nico Weidel, chief supply chain officer, Pet Valu. “Each electric delivery truck represents an opportunity to avoid consuming over 25,000 liters of diesel fuel or over 62 tonnes of CO2 (emissions) per year. We’re excited to explore how these trucks perform and assess the potential for further electrification of our delivery fleet in the future.”

Pet Valu spec’ed out its new Class 8 Volvo VNR Electric day cab trucks with the 565 kWh six-battery pack configuration, offering route drivers an operating range of up to 442 kilometers (about 275 miles) per charge. And, while Volvo’s VNRs are capable of ultra-fast charging, these trucks will power up overnight overnight at the company’s Surrey distribution center an a newly installed 120 kW charger.

In addition to deploying the trucks, the Volvo Trucks team worked closely with Pet Valu to identify and secure additional funding opportunities to help offset the high up-front cost of the battery-electric semis, including federal (Canadian) and provincial incentive programs Clean BC – Go Electric and iMHZEV (incentives for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Zero-Emission Vehicles).

“We are excited to see Pet Valu taking the initiative in the Canadian pet supply industry by adopting Volvo’s VNR Electric trucks,” says Matthew Blackman, managing director for Canada, Volvo Trucks North America. “As they venture into sustainable transportation, this effort is expected to not only strengthen their supply chain but also help support a healthier planet, one ‘purr-fectly’ quiet kilometer at a time.”

And, yes: we made the same joke. (I stand by it.)

Electrek’s Take

Pet Valu joins a growing list of companies – and they’re already adding to the tally of tens of millions of all-electric, zero emission miles driven by Volvo customers. By the time Volvo rolls out its next-generation VNL and FH electric semis later this year, they will represent company’s third generation of Class 8 EVs, and will be backed by more than 100,000,000 miles of real-world data collected by thousands of trucks across dozens of companies.

Can anyone catch up?

SOURCE | IMAGES: Volvo Trucks.