Mystery surrounds an inquiry by publicly-funded bodies into the circumstances surrounding two schoolboys plotting a Columbine-style massacre.
The findings of a Learning Lessons Review by the North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children Board to examine incidents at a Northallerton school which led up to counter-terrorism police swooping to arrest pupils Thomas Wyllie and Alex Bolland three days before Halloween in 2017 remain unknown.
Jurors heard the teenagers had been motivated by their “worship” of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 13 people and themselves at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999.
Wyllie was handed a 12-year custodial sentence while his co-defendant was given ten years after being found guilty of conspiracy to murder.
Despite numerous requests to the council for updates on the inquiry, it is even unclear if the inquiry has concluded.
As the review was launched to understand how and why the plot developed, parents voiced anger over the handling of an alleged incident at the school ahead of the boys being arrested. They have since raised concerns that their questions have not been answered.
Details of the incident cannot be reported due to concerns it could break a court ruling that the school should not be named, but when it happened in 2017 just weeks before the boys were arrested it triggered significant alarm among some parents.
Parents have claimed they were issued with misleading information by the North Yorkshire County Council-maintained school.
“The school tried to play it all down, but there was a lot of concern about how this incident was handled,” one parent, whose name is withheld, said following the sentencing in 2018.
Parents, whose names are withheld, said the confidence they had in information given to them by the school had been shaken. It is understood at least one complaint about the handling of the incident made to the director of children’s services at the council.
The county council, police and NHS-run North Yorkshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership, which has replaced the board, states in order to work together effectively, it would “ensure the effective protection of children is founded on practitioners developing lasting and trusting relationships with children and their families”.
While headteachers, supported by governors, are regarded as lead professionals and are therefore responsible for the business of their schools day-to-day, local authorities have statutory duties to monitor overall standards and to hold schools to account.
Last May, former Children’s Commissioner for England Professor Maggie Atkinson, who was the board’s chairman, stated the review was continuing, a multi-agency meeting was scheduled for last summer “to consolidate findings” and that a report would be submitted to the board’s executive.
However, the board stated the findings of the review would only be published if the findings were considered to be in the public interest.
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