Teenager who stabbed Aberdeen schoolboy Bailey Gwynne to death jailed for nine years

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The teenager who stabbed Aberdeen schoolboy Bailey Gwynne to death during a “trivial” row has been sentenced to nine years detention.

Bailey, 16, died of a knife wound when he was stabbed in the chest at Cults Academy in Aberdeen on 28 October last year.

The 16-year-old youth – who cannot be named for legal reasons – was found guilty of culpable homicide last month after a charge of murder was overruled by a jury at the High Court in Aberdeen following a five-day trial.

The youth was also convicted of two charges for possessing a knife and knuckledusters in school.

Judge Lady Stacey said: "If you had not carried a knife, the exchange of insults between you and Bailey Gwynne would have led at worst to a fist fight ... and certainly not loss of life."

"Nothing that I can say nor any sentence that I impose will do anything to lessen the grief that Bailey Gwynne's family and friends feel.

"The shock of the death at such a young age was felt in the wider community; nothing I can say or do can alleviate that."

The boy's sentence has been split into eight years for culpable homicide and one year for carrying a weapons.

The court heard that on the day he was stabbed, Bailey had missed out on a lunchtime trip to the local supermarket as his friends forgot to tell him about the plan.

He was in a corridor with a group of boys and, after refusing a second biscuit to one, made a remark about him getting fatter.

Accounts of the fight differed between witnesses but the jury heard that Bailey, who was on his way out of the corridor, turned round and squared up to the youth after he made a comment about his mother.

They both were said to have thrown punches and two onlookers said Bailey had him in a headlock before he pulled out a knife.