PUBLISHED ONNovember 03, 2024 3:25 AMByDrima ChakrabortyA Malaysian teenager studying in the UK has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 12 years for three counts of attempted murder.
Though the sentencing was carried out last month, he was named as 17-year-old Thomas Wei Huang on Nov 1 by British media after a judge lifted the initial gag order preventing his identification.
Huang attended Blundell's School, an independent boarding school located in Devon in the southwest of England.
On June 9, 2023, he used claw hammers to attack two classmates aged 15 and 16 shortly before 1am, as they slept, BBC reported.
Exeter Crown Court heard that the teens received skull fractures, rib and spleen injuries, a punctured lung and internal bleeding, with one of the boys suffering permanent brain damage.
Huang, who was 16 at that time, also attacked his housemaster Henry Roffe-Silvester with six blows to the head, but the latter has made a full recovery.
According to The Guardian, Huang told the jury that he slept with hammers under his pillow and next to his bed "for protection from the zombie apocalypse", which he believed was real after having watched movies and TV shows like The Walking Dead.
He claimed to require at least two weapons to defend himself against zombies in case he lost one.
Huang admitted to assaulting his schoolmates and Roffe-Silvester but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity due to sleepwalking, which the jury rejected, reported BBC.
He said: "I feel very terribly sorry for all three individuals because of what I did to them. I feel very sorry for everyone, the families and themselves."
UK's The Standard reported Justice Johannah Cutts as saying during Huang's sentencing: "You planned your offences and used hammers you had bought as weapons. You knew full well if you hit the boys multiple times with the hammers they would die."
Noting that Huang was "an intelligent boy" and that she was "satisfied" he knew right from wrong, Justice Cutts added: "In my view there remains a significant risk that you could behave in this way again.
"I consider that you pose a high level of danger to the public because of the nature of your offences."
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drimac@asiaone.com
