Identity of Student in School Hammer Attack Revealed

The identity of a schoolboy who used a hammer to assault two students and a teacher at a Devon boarding school has been revealed following a judge’s decision to remove a previous anonymity order. Thomas Wei Huang, a 17-year-old from Malaysia, received a life sentence with a minimum term of 12 years for his attempt to murder three individuals at Blundell’s School in Tiverton. On 9 June 2023, in the early morning hours, he assaulted two roommates, then aged 15 and 16, while they were asleep, inflicting severe injuries upon them. The teenager, who asserted he was sleepwalking at the time of the assault, was convicted of three counts of attempted murder and subsequently sentenced at Exeter Crown Court in October. Additionally, he attacked housemaster Henry Roffe-Silvester, who sustained six head wounds. Huang’s identity became public after a High Court judge rescinded the order that had previously prohibited the disclosure of his name. The jury was informed that Huang, who was 16 years old when the attack occurred, utilized weapons he had amassed in preparation for a zombie apocalypse. During sentencing, Judge Mrs Justice Cutts stated: “You knew the difference between right and wrong and you intended to kill those boys.” The teenager, while admitting to assaulting the two boys and the housemaster, entered a plea of not guilty to attempted murder, citing insanity due to his sleepwalking. The court was also informed that he possessed an “unhealthy interest in violence and violent films” and was contending with a “cocktail of extreme stress” stemming from exam and personal life difficulties. However, the jury dismissed the argument regarding sleepwalking. The two pupils were sleeping in cabin-style beds within one of the co-educational school’s boarding houses when Huang ascended and attacked them just before 01:00. Mr Roffe-Silvester, who had been asleep in his own living quarters, was roused by sounds emanating from the boarding house and proceeded to investigate. Upon entering the bedroom where the assault had occurred, he observed a silhouetted figure present in the room, who then faced him and repeatedly hit him on the head with a hammer. The two boys were found in their beds a few minutes later, having sustained skull fractures, injuries to their ribs and spleen, a punctured lung, and internal bleeding. The court was informed that both victims are experiencing the “long-term consequences” of the attack but retain no memory of the event. One boy, the court heard, suffered permanent brain damage. Mr Roffe-Silvester, despite receiving six blows to his head, achieved a full recovery.