Family loses high court challenge against decision not to call on those who had contact with her schoolboy killer

The family of Ann Maguire, the teacher stabbed to death in her classroom in 2014, have lost their challenge against a coroner’s decision not to call evidence from pupils who had contact with her schoolboy killer immediately before the murder.

Maguire’s husband, Don, and her children and nephews – who were not at London’s high court for the ruling on Monday – wanted Mr Justice Holroyde to order the decision taken by the assistant West Yorkshire coroner, Kevin McLoughlin, to be reconsidered.

An inquest into Maguire’s death is due to take place before a jury at Wakefield coroner’s court in November.

The 61-year-old was stabbed in the back by 15-year-old Will Cornick as she taught a Spanish class at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds in April 2014.

Cornick was later sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years.

Dismissing the claim for judicial review, the judge said: “I have much sympathy for the claimants, and I fully understand their reasons for wishing to pursue this line of inquiry.

“For the reasons I have given, however, I am unable to accept the submission that the assistant coroner reached a decision which was so seriously flawed as to be ... unreasonable.”

The counsel Nick Armstrong told the judge it was the only occasion on which a teacher had been killed by a pupil in a British classroom and the family were anxious “that all the lessons that can be learned from this enormous tragedy are learned”.

He said the coroner accepted that the inquest should address school rules and policies about weapons in school, reporting the presence of weapons in school, and how those rules and policies had been communicated to students.

This was because over three hours before the murder, Cornick told other students what he intended to do, and showed a number of them the knife – yet no report to a member of staff was made, at least until it was too late.

The coroner said all those students – now adults – were “potentially vulnerable” and were not to be reapproached, with the result that only transcripts of their interviews with police at the time would be adduced.

Armstrong said this approach was unlawful as the decision was a blanket one based on limited and generic evidence about vulnerability generally.

Cathryn McGahey QC argued that the decision was lawfully open to the assistant coroner who was “uniquely well placed” to make it.

The request to call the former pupils was opposed by other interested parties – including the sisters of Maguire, one of whom was an experienced teacher – who were concerned about the effect that giving evidence might have on these young people, she added. And Leeds council had said the facts regarding the morning of the incident were already clear and required no duplication of inquiry.

McGahey said: “The key issue was the usefulness of the evidence that these students could give. The coroner was entitled to reach the view that the benefit of calling the students would be limited.”

Most of the students told the police they had not taken Cornick’s threats seriously and the transcripts of their contemporaneous interviews would be available.