Thomas Wei Huang: Public schoolboy who attacked sleeping students with hammers named for first time

A public schoolboy who claimed he was sleepwalking when he attacked two students and a teacher with hammers can now be named.

It comes after a judge lifted an order preventing the identification of 17-year-old international student, Thomas Wei Huang.

Last week, he was detained for life with a minimum term of 12 years after he was found guilty of three charges of attempted murder in June following a 10-week trial.

Huang, who turns 18 in January, was dressed only in his boxer shorts when he repeatedly hit his dormmates as they slept in one of the boarding houses at the co-ed Blundell's School in Tiverton, Devon, in June last year.

Both boys suffered skull fractures, as well as injuries to their ribs, spleen, a punctured lung and internal bleeding. He then attacked a teacher who attempted to intervene.

They had been asleep in cabin-style beds when Huang climbed up and attacked them shortly before 1am on 9 June last year.

Maths teacher Henry Roffe-Silvester told Exeter Crown Court he was asleep in his own quarters when he was awoken by noises coming from the boarding house and went to investigate.

He said he saw a silhouetted figure standing in front of him in the room who then turned and repeatedly hit him over the head with a hammer.

"Physically I stumbled backwards into the corridor. There was a second blow - I can't remember if it was before I stumbled back - that's a little bit hazy for me," said Mr Roffe-Silvester, who suffered six blows to the head.

Another student heard Mr Roffe-Silvester shouting and swearing as he fled the bedroom and dialled 999 - believing there was an intruder.

The two boys were discovered in their beds a few minutes later.

Huang, from Malaysia, who was 16 at the time, admitted carrying out the attacks but said he was sleepwalking. He denied three charges of attempted murder on the basis he was not guilty by reason of insanity.

But the court was told he had an obsession with the killing of children and hammers, which he said he kept by his bed for "protection" from the "zombie apocalypse".

Prosecutors said the boy armed himself with three claw hammers and waited for the two boys to be asleep before attacking them.

At his sentencing hearing last month, judge Mrs Justice Cutts said experts could not say how long he would pose a risk to the public as she jailed him for life with a minimum term of 12 years.

"You planned your offences and used hammers you had bought as weapons," she told Huang, adding that, as an "intelligent boy", he "knew full well if you hit the boys multiple times with the hammers they would die".

She told him there was a significant risk he could repeat his attack and therefore he posed "a high level of danger to the public because of the nature of your offences".

In evidence, Huang told the jury he wanted to come to England to study in a boarding school and was "excited" to do so.

Asked if he was happy at the school, he replied: "Yes I was. I liked my friends, my teachers and the academic aspect of it. I didn't like the sports and the food at the school."

He described life at the boarding school, including pupils sharing takeaways and tubs of sweets.

The court heard Huang's brother, who is two years older than him, also went to Blundell's.

Huang can be named after a court official confirmed his lawyers would not be appealing the judge's earlier decision to lift the reporting restriction, which was made at the sentencing hearing following an application by the PA news agency.

(c) Sky News 2024: Thomas Wei Huang: Public schoolboy who attacked sleeping students with hammers named for first time