‘Too many red flags’ – Parents of murdered boy say school could have saved him
The parents of a schoolboy who was stabbed to death by a fellow pupil during his lunch break said they believe the school could have saved his life by acting on “too many red flags” shown by his killer.
Harvey Willgoose, 15, was murdered in front of horrified children and teachers at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield by Mohammed Umar Khan, 15, who took a hunting knife to school.
An independent review into Harvey’s death has found “several missed opportunities” to address behaviour and manage risk before the fatal stabbing, the Willgoose family’s lawyers said.
The private review was commissioned by St Clare Catholic Multi Academy Trust, which runs the school, and undertaken by a former school headteacher and inspector of schools at Learn Sheffield.
The trust said it would not be publishing the report because of sensitivities involved, but released the recommendations, saying it would implement them in full and had made a number of changes since Harvey’s death in February 2025.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the anniversary of Harvey’s death on Tuesday, his father Mark Willgoose said his son’s life could “100%” have been saved by the school.
“If they were doing what they should have been doing, Harvey would still be here today,” he said.
Caroline Willgoose, Harvey’s mother, said the report showed “too many red flags” by Khan that were not acted on, and renewed her call for knife arches to be installed in schools, as she said children were no safer now than at the time of Harvey’s death.
She said: “There’s a knife problem out there, the one place children should feel safe is school.”
Mrs Willgoose added: “I want the government to take some control from these academies because they’re a law unto themselves. It’s about their reputations, it’s not about child safety.”
The couple said they had been “shocked” reading the report, and would like an apology from the school.
Mr Willgoose said: “They let Harvey down.”
Mrs Willgoose added: “They let them both down.”
Mr Willgoose said it was “a massive failing” that Khan had been allowed to walk into the school that day.
Mrs Willgoose highlighted the fact that a member of staff asked Khan if he had anything in his bag he should not have, and said: “If you’ve got a reason to ask, you’ve got a reason to search.”
Law firm Irwin Mitchell, representing Harvey’s family, has seen the report and said it found that from the point Khan was first considered for a move to All Saints through to the day of the killing, school leaders “could, and at times should, have taken different action”, with system weaknesses contributing to “oversights, assumptions and misjudgements”.
According to Irwin Mitchell, the report said safeguarding and behaviour records were not requested or reviewed before Khan’s move from another school to All Saints Catholic High was agreed and, when later transferred, were not read because of unclear responsibility.
This meant staff were unaware of historic incidents involving violence, weapons references and anger.
Irwin Mitchell said the report also found that weapons-related concerns were handled “inconsistently”.
After pupils reported in October 2024 that Khan had previously carried a knife and brought a BB gun on a school trip, staff carried out a search but failed to investigate further, complete a risk assessment or put a safety plan in place, and records were incomplete.
In December 2024, when an axe was found in his bag off-site, police were informed but no in-school follow-up occurred, which the review is said to have described as a safeguarding failure.
The review also identifies “policy gaps, unclear management responsibilities, and multiple occasions where government guidance was not followed, including inadequate after-search safeguarding checks and delayed or missing entries on an online child protection management system”.
As Khan’s behaviour escalated between November 2024 and January 2025, school leaders should have been “joining the dots” and recognised these as opportunities for intervention, Irwin Mitchell said.
They added that the report found Khan was allowed into school “unsearched and without any completed assessment” on the day of Harvey’s death despite an open investigation into a fresh knife allegation.
The report sets out 10 recommendations for the school, its Trust, the local authority and the Department for Education.
These include:
– Mandatory record sharing at the outset of any pupil school move, with senior sign-off confirming full safeguarding and behaviour records have been reviewed before a pupil starts.
– Clarity in safeguarding and behaviour, including who monitors patterns of serious incidents.
– Create a clear weapons response policy.
– Fix systems and training including adding dedicated knives/weapons categories in online systems and ensure all staff are trained on government guidelines on how to search, screen and confiscate knives.
– Sheffield City Council to establish a citywide support system for pupils involved in, or at risk of, knife crime.
– The Department for Education to issue further national guidance on how schools respond to knife possession and reports of knife possession.
Mrs Willgoose said: “Harvey was the light of our lives. Anyone who knew him will tell you he was a fun-loving, cheeky, sociable kid who filled every room with energy.
“He had big dreams, he was always laughing, always bringing people together. Losing him has torn a hole in our family that will never be replaced.
“Every day since Harvey was taken from us has been agony for us all. I still hear his voice saying ‘I love you’ before he left for school that morning — the last words I ever heard him say.
“No parent should outlive their child, and certainly not because of something as senseless and avoidable as a knife being brought into school.
“Reading the findings of this report has been devastating. To see in black and white the chances there were to step in, the signs that were missed and how many opportunities there were to protect our boy is something that nobody should be going through.
“We’ll always be angry about what happened to Harvey
“Harvey deserved better. All the children in that school deserved better.”
Steve Davies, chief executive of St Clare Catholic Multi Academy Trust, said: “Harvey’s death was a profound tragedy for our community and our thoughts remain with his family.
“Not all questions about the events leading up to the tragedy were addressed by the criminal trial and we therefore commissioned this external investigation to bring as much transparency as possible to the situation.
“We are grateful to the investigator for his careful and thorough work, as well as to the members of our community who generously gave their time to support this important process.
“It is clear that the report identifies areas for improvement, including in relation to our processes, information-sharing and training.
“We are engaging with an external safeguarding expert to advise on how we can implement the recommendations across the school and, where appropriate, the Trust as a whole.
“We have already implemented a number of robust measures over the last year and will continue to take action in line with the report’s recommendations and external advice from the statutory safeguarding agencies.”
Published: by Radio NewsHub