The 16-year-old accused of murdering Bailey Gwynne told police the knife used to kill the schoolboy was purchased on Amazon and that he carried it every day in the weeks leading up to the attack, including taking it into school.
In a lengthy videotaped interview played to Aberdeen high court on Thursday, the boy explained that he had paid £40 for the “cool-looking” knife which he ordered online “because they don’t check your age”.
Wearing a blue paper forensic suit, the boy told police officers interviewing him the day after the killing: “It had a gold handle with dots on it, green or blue ... It said on Amazon that it was legal in the UK because the blade was under 3 inches.”
He said he had first bought a pair of knuckledusters online after watching a character in a US television show using them in a fight. “I searched the internet for about an hour and found some to buy. It was the same with the knife. I just thought knives are cool.”
The boy said he then put the items in his inside jacket pocket “to show my friends”, but had forgotten they were there and consequently carried the knife every day for several weeks prior to the killing.
Bailey, 16, was stabbed at the end of the lunch break at Cults academy, one of Scotland’s highest-performing state schools, on 28 October 2015. He was rushed to hospital but died of his injuries at Aberdeen Royal infirmary.
The accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admits killing Bailey but denies the charge of murder.
The jury was shown the recording, during which the accused frequently paused to wipe tears from his eyes and repeatedly insisted that he “didn’t mean to stab [Bailey]”, on the third day of the trial.
The senior police officer is heard formally charging the accused with murder at the end of the interview, at which point he can be heard sobbing inconsolably, saying: “But I did try and save him.” Bailey’s mother wept as she listened to the exchange, rocking back and forth in her seat as relatives tried to comfort her.
The boy admitted to being worried about his weight, saying he had recently stopped going to PE lessons because he was too embarrassed to undress in front of his fellow pupils. He told officers he had never had a girlfriend.
He said he carried the knife as an act: “I’ve never fitted in so I was just trying to look cool, act confident, act tough, but I wasn’t.”
Focusing on the moments leading up to the stabbing, he insisted he had pulled out the weapon in order to scare away Bailey who had become angry during an exchange of insults over a biscuit.
He told officers Bailey had refused to give another boy a biscuit, telling him it was “because you don’t want to get any fatter”. The accused then responded: “Just like your mum.”
“He looked angry. I pulled out the knife and opened it up to scare him off. I tried to scare him away again and then he got in the way and it stabbed him.”
He said he tried help Bailey when he realised the extent of the injury. “I tried to take his blazer off and stop the bleeding. Blood was just spewing out.”
He contradicted earlier evidence from other witnesses to the fight, saying he ducked to avoid Bailey’s blows but that he could not remember being held in a headlock, which other boys had described.
Earlier on Thursday, the court heard that an online search had been made for “how to get rid of someone annoying” on a laptop used by the accused only three weeks before the fatal stabbing.
The forensic computer analyst Charles Bruce told the court that search terms made in the year before the killing and recovered from the laptop included “difference between a homicide and a murder” and “Aberdeen stabbing deaths per 1,000”.
Bruce told the jury he had found a search for a YouTube video entitled “14-year-old Bronx student stabs bully to death outside school”.
Ian Duguid QC, defending, said the video was a cartoon and described the evidence as “limited”. He argued that looking at search terms in isolation could give a distorted picture.
Bruce admitted he had not followed up any of the links recorded.
Duguid said the search for getting rid of someone annoying linked to an internet forum where the question had been posed by a nine-year-old. Replies included “make him go away” and “be mean”. He also suggested that the inquiry about homicide related to the computer game Grand Theft Auto.
The trial continues.
