Caroline Willgoose was told over the phone by her husband Mark that their 15-year-old boy had been stabbed at school and that it was ‘serious’ – as the married couple campaign against knife crime
The mum of a teenager who was tragically stabbed to death at school has opened up about the “horrendous” moment she found out. Harvey Willgoose was killed at the age of 15 when he was attacked at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield on February 3.
First responders rushed to take the school boy to hospital but he was tragically pronounced dead in the ambulance. Now, mum Caroline has revealed her husband Mark told her over the phone that their beloved son had been stabbed at school.
The 49-year-old mum said: “I was getting ready to go to work. Mark’s mum rang me and said ‘something serious has happened’.
“I rang Mark, he was shouting down the phone. ‘He’s been stabbed! He’s been stabbed! It’s serious!’ As soon as he said that a police car came up and said ‘you need to come with us now’. It was just horrendous.”
Caroline, from Sheffield, said she was travelling to the city’s Northern General Hospital in a police car with blue lights with her other son. But tragically, Harvey died on the way to the hospital.
Caroline said: “We were going to go to Northern General Hospital. We’d got blue lights on. Me and my son were there and then they said ‘we’re going to go to the children’s’, turned the blue lights off and were going normal speed. I still thought ‘oh, he’s alright’.”
On Saturday (February 8), hundreds of people marched from Sheffield Town Hall to Bramall Lane – where Harvey’s favourite football club Sheffield United play. Caroline and Mark carried a banner that read ‘Lives not Knives’. She said: “He was known up and down the country.
“People have got in touch with me from other cities to say they met him at away games and he was funny.” A 15-year-old boy, who can’t be named due to his age, has been charged with murder, possession of a bladed article and one count of affray.
He will appear at Sheffield Crown Court on April 28 and a trial has been provisionally set for June 30. Steve Davies, the CEO of St Clare Catholic Multi Academy Trust, previously described Harvey as a “immensely popular young man” who was “precious and loved”.
He said: “All Saints Catholic High School lost one of our own in the most shocking and tragic of circumstances. Harvey was an invaluable part of our school community. An immensely popular young man with his fellow students and teachers alike, he had a smile that would light up the room. Harvey was young. He was precious. He was loved.”
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