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The hero teacher who disarmed a pupil armed with a crossbow and machete has likened the scene after he went on the attack to a "horror film".

The 13-year-old allegedly stabbed a stand-in teacher to death at his school in Barcelona after attacking another with his home-made crossbow.

He also injured a third teacher and two pupils during a 15-minute rampage at the Joan Fuster Institute on Monday morning.

Fellow pupils claimed the unnamed youngster had a death list with the names of 25 teachers and pupils, although education chiefs confirmed he may have suffered a "psychotic breakdown."

(Image: Getty)

PE teacher David Jurado Fernandez described him as an "excellent pupil with many worries and grand ideas."

Telling Catalan daily El Periodico of the moment he recognised him by the military jacket he wore almost every day and decided to bring his rampage to a halt, he said: "I went downstairs to the gym and picked up a wooden pole.

"When I went back to the first floor, the other pupils told me he'd gone up to the second floor so I ran up the stairs. "It was like a horror film. People had dropped everything on the floor. You could see there'd been a stampede.

"That's when I discovered there was a body lying face down in the middle of the floor. I thought at first it was a student of mine."

Mr Jurado, a trained psychologist whose brother is a police officer, said he entered a classroom opposite after spotting the armed 13-year-old preparing a petrol bomb using an empty beer bottle by the desk of the man he had just allegedly stabbed to death.

(Image: Getty)

Recalling how he dropped his wooden pole as he approached the youngster, who he described as "delirious", he added: "Very calmly I made him understand he was doing a lot of harm to more people than he imagined.

"Then I asked him to distance himself from his weapons and hand them over. First he gave me a pickaxe he was carrying, then the knife, then the bottle and finally the crossbow before handing me his rucksack.

"I asked him to show me what he was carrying in his pockets which he did. I got closer and closer to him and then he collapsed, I hugged him and he began to cry like the child he is and like the child I taught.

"My only aim was to disarm him without hurting him or hurting myself so that everything ended as soon as possible. "That's all I did, nothing else."

(Image: Getty)

The 35-year-stand in teacher killed during the attack has been named as Abel Martinez.

The Barcelona fan, from Lleida an hour's drive west of the Catalan capital, had only working in the Joan Fuster Institute for 10 days as a replacement for a regular teacher.

Lleida's mayor Angel Ros went to his parents' home to offer his condolences but they were too distraught to receive him and he spoke with Abel's older brother instead.

The youngster blamed for the school attack is still being held in the psychiatric unit of a Barcelona hospital.

Because he is under the age of 14, he will not be held criminally accountable for his actions.

Schools across Catalunya were due to hold a minute's silence at midday today. Catalunya's regional government declared a day's mourning.