It’s a bright spring Tuesday morning, the time is 11am.
“I’m sorry, I’m still laid in bed right now,” explains the mother of murdered schoolboy Harvey Willgoose, as she answers my telephone call. “It’s horrendous getting up every morning because I dream about him [Harvey] and wake up every time with a pain in my stomach, I can’t move.”
It’s now 421 days since Caroline got the life-changing call at work from her mother-in-law to tell her something serious had happened to her 15-year-old son at school.
She remembers how a police car swiftly arrived, and she began a journey under blue lights to hospital to be by Harvey’s bedside. When the patrol car dropped down to normal speed and the flashing lights were turned off, she thought he was “alright”.
But the grim reality was her son had slipped away.
Harvey had been stabbed through the heart with a 13cm hunting knife by fellow pupil Mohammed Umar Khan, also 15, who launched his fatal attack outside the canteen at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield in front of children and teachers.
“I think about that day all the time,” says Caroline. “The hope my boy is ok, the shock of finding out and then the mix of rage and sadness. No mother, no parent should ever have to go through it, because it never ends, you can’t move on from it.”
Shortly after his death, the heartbroken mother paid tribute to her son, describing Harvey as “caring, loving and a funny young man”. She shared happy pictures on social media of him at a festival and others with her on holiday in Tenerife and Greece.
Then, days later, when the football team he supported, Sheffield United, played in the city, Caroline and Harvey’s father, Mark, joined supporters in a march before the game. At the 15th minute of the match, emotion broke out inside the stadium as the crowd, joined by players, delivered a standing applause to celebrate Harvey’s life.
Today, in the back garden of his home, where he would play football with friends, the nets are still up, and the ball is on the grass. Inside the three-bedroom house, his school shoes are still out, his clothes are in an ironing pile, and his bedroom remains untouched.
“His dad sometimes goes in [the bedroom] to have a cry because it still smells of him, everything inside has remained the same,” Caroline says.
“We’ve got a dog, a cockapoo, which was born just the day he [Harvey] passed, and he won’t even go that room, he knows there’s something. His [Harvey’s] shoes, clothes in the ironing pile and balls and nets in the garden…. I just can’t get rid of them.
“It’s also simple things like I find an old drawing he’s done from primary school, and things like that. Mother’s Day cards, too. You don’t want to move those things, and they just remain static for you, because you never want to leave your son behind.”
The despair over Harvey’s death has, at times, escalated into frustration and anger over the past year of immense grieving for the family.
Earlier this year, an independent review into Harvey’s death, which was commissioned by the academy trust that runs his school, found “several missed opportunities” to address behaviour and manage risk before the stabbing.
According to the family lawyers Irwin Mitchell, the review, which was not published, showed records were not requested or reviewed before Khan’s move from another school, where there had been incidents involving violence, weapons references and anger.
Also, despite an investigation into a knife allegation on the day of Harvey’s death, the law firm said the report found Khan was allowed into school “unsearched and without any completed assessment”.
The criminal trial, which saw Khan convicted of murder and detained for at least 16 years, heard tensions were running high at the school in the week before the attack, with a lockdown declared on one day after an unproven claim that a pupil in a fight had a knife.
Harvey had stayed off for most of the week, texting his father: “Am not going in that school while people have knives.”
“I feel guilty because we urged him to go into school,” says Caroline. “I felt like we led him into the lion’s den. He didn’t want to go. But then also, where was the protection for my son? Where were the checks by the school?
“If they’d even looked at his [Khan’s] phone they’d have realised he was heading down a dark road with an unhealthy interest in weapons. He was out to kill somebody; there were so many missed opportunities.”
The school trust did release the report’s 10 recommendations, saying it would help implement them. They included mandatory record sharing of any pupil school move with senior sign-off confirming safeguarding and behaviour records have been reviewed before a pupil starts.
The trust also said a number of “robust measures” had been introduced since Harvey’s death – although Caroline says they haven’t gone far enough.
Following her son’s death, an MP, on behalf of the family, asked the school if it would introduce a knife metal detector, known as a knife arch, at its entrance. It responded by saying handheld knife detectors are already in use, she said.
The Independent understands the school took advice on options for security after Heavey’s death and has since brought in other changes including bleed kits, enhanced staff training and updated search policites.
Caroline, who offered a donated knife arch to all schools in the Sheffield area, says: “Schools are more worried about reputation and not scaring the parents, I’ve even heard some say [knife arches] they look frightening. But by not having the arches, they are putting children at risk.
“It’s a sad matter of fact that if there was one at All Saints on the day Harvey was murdered, he would still be here today.”
Caroline is also calling for stricter punishment for children caught with knives, claiming school leaders avoid suspensions “because it looks bad on school targets”. It comes on the day The Independent reveals there were more than 700 incidents of knife crimes in schools in England and Wales last year.
“Doing this, trying to raise awareness and push schools to take action, helps me continue with my life,” she says. “It’s all in the name of Harvey – I just know he would want me to be doing this.”
