Well, let’s see. He was beating the kids head with a metal dumbell and shouting, “die, die, die”. Call me crazy, but that sure sounds like attempted murder to me.
LOL ... it does ... :-)
Yes, which is why he was put on trial for it. But the medical evidence was that he was not thinking rationally at the time.
He faced three charges - inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm, inflicting GBH with intent, and attempted murder. The last two require a deliberate intent and conscious decision. The first does not. He plead guilty to the first.
At trial, evidence was presented (most notably the fact that he had sought medical attention previously because he felt he was losing control) which the jury decided showed he was not in his right mind when he committed this offence.
If he had chosen to plead not guilty to the first charge, there’s every chance he would have got off on that one two - basically an insanity defence - but he acknowledged that he shouldn’t have been back in that classroom, he’d chosen to go back, and he felt he was responsible for that decision.
I’m not sure I agree with the verdicts or not. I wasn’t there in the court. But the situation shouldn’t have been allowed to develop and if there’d been effective discipline allowed in that school, it wouldn’t have. And we wouldn’t have a severely injured child, and a convicted criminal who once was a decent teacher.