Village shock at school murder

by John Thorne
BBC North of England correspondent

Villagers console each other after laying flowers

The windswept, isolated village of North Somercotes has suddenly been transformed by a violent death at its school.

Red-eyed tearful teenage girls, some holding hands, others carrying small bouquets of flowers, walk bewildered along the main street trying to adjust the new ugly violence that has shattered their rural community.

Inside the cramped Methodist church a few dozen people gathered for an informal service, a gesture to help in the communal grieving process.

Village churchmen talked about 14-year-old victim Luke Walmsley. They acknowledged how his sudden death in the corridors of Birkbeck School had ruined the lives of many, including Luke's family.

Flowers

One priest voiced the wish of all that, if only the clock could be turned back 25 hours or so, Luke could be with his friends again.

At the gates of Birkbeck School, trickles of pupils and parents have been placing flowers and messages. Police incident vehicles pack the driveway. Evidence is still being gathered inside the building.

Our family has been ripped apart and will never be the same again School murder victim's mother

Many of the teachers, at what is one of the smallest secondary schools in the country, met in the staff room to console and counsel each other and to plan how to help rebuild what head teacher Gary Loveridge called the "caring family ethos" of this establishment.

The depth of the anguish this death has brought to the Walmsley family was clear when Luke's mother and father, Jayne and Paul, expressed their grief.

Tearful

In Mr Walmsley's front garden just half a mile or so from Luke's school, Jayne Walmsley tearfully read a family statement.

"Yesterday we woke up with two children but today we have only one. Our family has been ripped apart and will never be the same again," she said.

Then the Walmsleys, with relatives comforting them, quickly withdrew from the camera glare back behind their pulled curtains to continue to mourn.

Luke's parents said their family had been 'ripped apart'

The emotions of a whole community are clear to see on the streets and laneways of North Somercotes.

Leaders of this outpost settlement on the edge of the North Sea seem confident that the people will recover from the nightmare that has descended upon them.

Reopen

The school will reopen in the morning - not for lessons, but as a place where the students and their parents can get a chance to talk through the trauma.

And that is the priority in North Somercotes. The shops are open, the pub is serving lunch, the postman is battling against the wind. It is remarkably normal on the surface apart from the invasion of media satellite trucks and newspaper photographers.

But the killing of Luke Walmsley, a strong, positive boy according to his head teacher, has dropped the scattered flat village into the cruel violence of the 21st century that can now corrupt even the most idyllic of peaceful farming hideaways.