A SCHOOLBOY with a morbid fascination to kill has been convicted of attempting to murder a fellow pupil in a school corridor.

Following the verdict it was revealed that he had thoughts of killing a member of his own family but the jury had not been told of that during the trial.

The 16-year old boy was said by the prosecution to have aimed for his victim's neck in a random knife attack.

But fortunately he missed and stabbed him in the shoulder instead.

The victim continued to walk as a CCTV chillingly showed the defendant, then just 15, walking up the corridor re-opening his knife.

By sheer good fortune the victim arrived at his classroom and the attacker thought better of it, later saying he did not want to kill the boy in front of class mates.

He admitted that he had stabbed the boy and pleaded guilty to wounding with intent.

But he denied attempted murder.

The jury at Mold Crown Court retired for 48 minutes today and unanimously convicted him.

Judge Rhys Rowlands remanded him in custody pending sentence but warned him that he faced a significant custodial sentence.

The judge said he had been convicted "on the most compelling evidence" of attempting to kill the fellow pupil "who had done absolutely nothing at all to you."

The victim, the judge said, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Judge Rowlands said that he did not accept for one moment that the defendant thought about the victim every day as he had claimed in evidence.

"I take the view that you do not have an ounce of remorse for what you did," he said.

Judge Rowlands rejected his claim that he had found the knife on farmland.

He said he had been carrying it around for some weeks and had taken it to school.

There was an abundance of evidence that he harboured a desire to harm others, to kill others in his own family and in the wider community.

It was, he said, "very, very disturbing indeed".

The judge said he took the view that he presented a very significant risk of causing serious harm of the highest order to other individuals.

He said the court would have to pass such a sentence to address the risk that he posed.

Despite his age the sentence would involve a lengthy period of custody followed by a lengthy period of supervision.

If it were to be a hospital order, there would be a restriction on his release.

The judge told the jury that it had been a particularly disturbing case to deal with.

He told the jury that they had deliberately not been told the full picture.

"There was evidence in relation to a family member that he wanted to kill her as well," he said.

But that had not been placed in front of the jury in the trial out of fairness to the defendant.

The defendant did not suffer from a mental illness but it was suspected that he had a serious personality disorder which was normally not treatable.

He will be sentenced on December 12.

The four day trial put a spot light on the knife attack at Eirias Park High School in Colwyn Bay in February. Prosecutor Myles Wilson said the defendant was a troubled young man who had thoughts of stabbing the complainant who he did not know.

The victim just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time but luckily escaped with non life-threatening injuries.

It was the prosecution case that he intended to stab him to the back of the neck so that it would prove fatal.

He missed and stabbed him to the shoulder instead.

"Realising that he had not killed him, he retraced his steps, re-opening the knife intending to finish off the job.

"But he was prevented by the boy going into the classroom, the defendant gave up and left the school premises."

He had repeatedly told the police that he had intended to kill him.

It was the defence case that was just bravado.

He said what he did because he wanted to go into custody - because he thought his sister was not going to take him back.

The defendant went to the seafront in Rhyl and told a witness that he had stabbed someone in the neck and was wanted for attempted murder.

It was the prosecution case that it was sheer good fortune that the complainant moved forward and that he was not stabbed to the neck.

The defendant had said he was troubled and anxious, and in that state he decided randomly to pick on the boy but that he did not intend to kill him but intended to cause him some serious harm.

He took a knife to school, chose a random victim, with whom he had no grievance,and tried to stab him in the neck. "What do those actions tell us? It's obvious isn't it," Mr Wilson said.

He missed, stood back to see the victim's reaction to being stabbed and then the CCTV chillingly showed him getting the knife out of his pocket and walking back up that corridor.

Mr Wilson said: "He says his intention was to injure him. He had already injured him. Why go back?"

It was lucky for the complainant that he was close to his classroom "or this would have been a different charge."

The defendant had said he could not face killing someone in front of a classroom, someone he knew.

The defendant had said that he had a morbid fascination to kill, not flippantly. He said it over and over again to different people in authority who are there to help him.

In police interview he had told how he started thinking about death and killing. He had been thinking about doing it. It been at the back of his mind, getting a feeling of power, deciding if someone should die.

He told how it was "nothing personal" and had not shown a shred of remorse.

Sion ap Mihangel, defending, said that it was not a straight forward case and said the jury may have changed their view since the opening of the case.

Simply because someone said something it did not mean that it was correct, he said.

They were dealing with a young person, 15 at the time.

Imagining or thinking about it was very different to actually doing it, he said.

If he intended to kill would they expect more than one blow?

"Can you be sure that he intended to kill or is it equally consistent with an individual intending to cause a really serious injury, something which he accepts. Does that single blow demonstrate an intention to kill?'

Earlier, the defendant was asked about the stabbing of a cow to the neck and the drowning of a sheep.

Asked by the prosecutor why he had done it, he said "I didn't really have great control over my anger."

He had been very angry thinking about the past.

"I believe that had something to do with my anger and I just let it out on the animals," he said.

When people were exposed to violence it could be there in the back of the mind.