A CLEVER child from a loving middle class home, William Cornick was the most unlikely perpetrator of a crime that would shock Britain.
As the 16-year-old was sentenced to life in prison after becoming the first pupil to kill a teacher in a British classroom, friends said they were stunned by his senseless stabbing of his teacher Ann Maguire.
To the teacher in charge of his year he was 'a his best'. Fellow pupils at Corpus Christi Catholic College said he was a just a 'typical lad' who rarely misbehaved.
'He was probably the most intelligent person I knew,' said Tom Smith, a former student. 'But he was really quiet and kept himself to himself. He had his friends, but he wasn't with them all the time.
'You can look at someone and say "I don't think they could do anything…show more content… Significantly, the final three took place two months before the murder and concerned his hatred of Mrs Maguire and dislike of Spanish lessons.
But closer inspection of Cornick's internet use revealed a different side to his apparently respectable image.
As one pupil said: 'The Grim Reaper was the first thing you saw on his [Facebook] page.
'That corrected everyone's opinion. [I thought] what the hell has happened, something has definitely gone wrong.' Friends had begun to regard him as a 'loner and weirdo' and 'disturbing' aspects of his personality became apparent. He spoke openly about murdering his teacher, messaging a friend on Facebook about brutally killing her and spending the rest of his life in jail.
He had numerous images of knives on his mobile phone. He also had a keen interest in ultraviolent video games, including Dark Souls II, in which players hack zombies to pieces.
Players devour the souls of their fallen enemies to the sound of cries of agony. Disturbing images include a character made up of hundreds of human corpses. It was voted one of the ten Most Violent Video Games of