On April 24, 2024, the corridors of Ysgol Dyffryn Aman in Carmarthenshire, Wales, were shattered by a shocking act of violence that has since reverberated through the country’s education system. During a break, a 13-year-old girl—whose fascination with Adolf Hitler and weapons had raised quiet alarms—stabbed two teachers and a pupil, leaving the tight-knit school community traumatized and sparking urgent calls for reform.
The attack unfolded with terrifying speed. According to BBC Wales, teacher Liz Hopkin was in the midst of her duties when she witnessed the girl lunge at her colleague, drama and Welsh teacher Fiona Elias, shouting, “I’m going to kill you.” Hopkin, driven by instinct and concern for the children around her, intervened. She later recalled, “She stabbed me in the leg and then she came towards me and stabbed me in the neck and then twice in the back.” The chaos only ended when rugby teacher Darrel Campbell, 64, managed to restrain the attacker until police arrived, as reported by the Daily Mail.
The school was immediately placed on lockdown, and two air ambulances were dispatched to the scene. The 14-year-old pupil, also stabbed in the arm, survived the attack. The attacker, who cannot be named due to her age, had reportedly told fellow students that very morning of her intention to stab Ms. Elias and had a history of carrying a knife to school daily—smuggled in cargo pants rather than standard uniform. She was found guilty in April 2025 of three counts of attempted murder and sentenced to 15 years in detention.
In her first interview since the ordeal, Ms. Hopkin spoke candidly about her inability to return to the classroom. “I haven’t been back to work. I can’t ever imagine doing that work again, I can’t imagine going into a school, I can’t go past the front of the school,” she told BBC Wales. “I feel like I’ve got a lot to offer but everything stopped that day.” The trauma, she said, remains “very much vivid there in my head.”
The multi-agency review published on August 27, 2025, cast a harsh spotlight on missed opportunities and systemic failures. The report, authored by Gladys Rhodes White OBE, detailed the attacker’s troubled childhood, mental health struggles, and her disturbing obsession with Nazi memorabilia and war. There were even discussions, prior to the attack, about referring her to the government’s Prevent counter-extremism program, but no action was taken. The review made 11 recommendations, including better information sharing between agencies and more targeted support for at-risk children. “If information had been fully shared and assessed, the girl would have benefitted from targeted help,” the report concluded.
Ms. Hopkin, though appreciative of the report, expressed frustration at the lack of tangible progress. “The recommendations and what has come up in that report isn’t anything new,” she said. “Thinking that there were times where perhaps people or agencies in particular could have discussed or shared this information and worked together, it could have made a massive difference. What will help is that if people take the report seriously and don’t just shelve it. The incidents that are happening are the tip of the iceberg. There isn’t enough action. I want the Welsh government to be looking more deeply into why these situations happen. Nothing has changed.”
Her concerns are shared by many. Teaching unions, politicians, and even her husband John—also a teacher at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman—have voiced alarm about the ongoing risks in schools. John Hopkin described finding his wife sitting on the steps in a “pool of blood,” and later told Daily Mail, “I think physically, [Liz] has recovered well, but she’s struggling with her mental health. She’s more concerned about the safety of others in schools. She’s worried that people aren’t listening, and lessons may not have been learned.”
Fiona Elias, the teacher first attacked, recounted the harrowing moment in her victim statement at the sentencing hearing. “The image is etched in my mind. It’s a moment that replays itself over and over. The scars on my arms are a daily reminder of the pain I endured. She tried to murder me,” Elias said. She revealed that she has undergone counseling to “stop the spirals” before they “consume” her, and described the impact on her family, including her daughter being haunted by a photo circulated on social media.
Plaid Cymru Senedd member and former Ysgol Dyffryn Aman pupil Adam Price has been among the most vocal advocates for reform. “Two of the most striking things are the need for an overhaul of the way information is shared between agencies. If that jigsaw had been connected, could it have helped prevent this incident from happening?” he asked, as reported by BBC Wales. “We’ve had the summit but what we haven’t yet seen is a vision and a way forward, implementing practical concrete policy changes in a whole host of areas, building on the lessons and recommendations learned in this report, but insights from teaching unions and others too. Because my fear is if that doesn’t happen, then we could, and probably will, be looking at other tragedies in the future which could be even more serious.”
The joint statement from Carmarthenshire council, the school headteacher, Dyfed-Powys Police, and Hywel Dda health board acknowledged the “challenging and difficult circumstance faced by the victims and the whole community.” They pledged to work with all partners to develop an action plan addressing the report’s recommendations. The Welsh government also responded, saying, “It is vital lessons are learnt from this tragic and shocking event to ensure incidents like this never happen again. It is clear the school did everything it could in response to the incident.” The government added it was working with partners “to develop more effective, multi-agency approaches to address behaviour issues in schools.”
This tragedy did not occur in isolation. The report’s publication coincided with the conviction of a teenager for the murder of pupil Harvey Willgoose at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, in February 2025. Harvey’s mother, Caroline, is campaigning for knife arches to be installed in schools and for more robust education about the devastation wrought by knife crime. “Get knife arches in, then get educating children about the pure devastation that knife crime brings,” she urged, according to Daily Mail.
As the dust settles and the victims continue to recover, the sense of urgency grows. The events at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman have exposed not just the vulnerabilities in the system, but the deep scars left on those who serve at its front lines. Whether the lessons of that day will lead to meaningful change remains to be seen, but for Liz Hopkin and many others, the cost of inaction is simply too high.
