Stalker spared prison after attacking ex girlfriend with a knife

How did we get to this point?

On Sunday the 15th of March 2026, in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, a 14-year-old boy waited outside a shop for his former girlfriend, whom he went to school with, before attacking her with a knife.

The boy approached the girl calmly before producing a six-inch knife from his pocket and unleashing a frenzied attack on her, attempting to stab her more than ten times. The shopkeeper intervened, also suffering injuries, before the girl fled the shop and the boy was arrested in possession of the knife.

The boy was sentenced at the Youth Court and handed a three-year restraining order and a twelve-month youth rehabilitation order.

So how does this happen? How does a childhood romance at school turn into something deadly? What causes someone to act in this way, and why did the courts not send the boy to prison?

Around 98% of domestic homicides have an element of stalking prior to the murder happening. Stalking is characterised by fixated, obsessive, unwanted and repeated behaviour (FOUR). Albeit this isn’t classed as a domestic incident due to both parties being under 16.

The boy and girl were in a brief relationship, and when the girl ended the relationship, the boy became obsessed following her rejection of his further advances. He created various fake social media profiles in an attempt to contact her which the girl blocked him. This further rejection made the boy spiral until he eventually made the decision to enact vengeance, which in his mind, was likely justified.

Stalkers do not believe they are stalkers, and they rationalise their behaviour. When I have interviewed stalkers, they always deny that they are stalkers. Instead, they say that they just want to get back with the person. That they can’t live without them. That they are hurting and they don’t want to lose the relationship. Often, stalking is less about the person being stalked and more about the way the stalker is feeling, seeing the victim as both the cause and the remedy for the stalker’s pain.

When we look at the timeline, we see that the relationship ended and the female rejected the male’s advances in December 2025, and the attack occurred in March 2026. This is just around three months following the relationship being terminated. This is a worrying and rapid escalation.

A further note on this:

When we analyse and look at domestic abusive relationships, we often look at the victim and say, ‘Why don’t they just leave the relationship, and why do they keep going back?’

Simple. Fear. Because when the relationship ends and the perpetrator knows that they no longer have control, and their attempts at rekindling the relationship are not working, this is when the victim is in the most danger and when things, as we have seen, can turn deadly.

So why did the boy not go to prison?

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The comments made by the judge are telling.

The sitting judge in this case described the incident as ‘very troubling’, but did not consider the 14-year-old boy to be a ‘danger’, even though he had likely planned this attack in his head for months before executing it.

We can also see from the hand placement of the knife that he was holding the blade in a downward motion. This is known as the ‘icepick’ grip, and allows someone to generate much greater force with a strike, and allows someone to target someone’s vital areas, such as face, neck, chest and head.

We have a boy who became obsessed with a girl and then, over the space of months, attempted to rekindle the relationship before trying to, in my opinion, murder her.

But the judge says he isn’t a danger.

The boy should have been sent to prison, but instead received a restringing order, and a rehabilitation order. I don’t know about you, but someone shouldn’t need a course to tell them not to try and kill someone. She doesn’t like you anymore. That sucks, but life goes on, kid.

So now, why was the boy not charged with attempted murder?

The cold truth is that, despite the boy attacking the girl with a knife and attempting to stab her ten times, loitering around where she was and arriving at the location with a knife in his possession, the prosecution has targets to hit. Because of this, they will often go for the ‘safest charge’. This means that if they can secure a lesser, stronger charge, like intending to cause serious harm, rather than fight for a more difficult but serious charge, such as attempted murder, then they will. It’s all about success rates and statistics.

This is a horrific case where a young boy became obsessed with a girl. Loitered around where he knew she was, with a knife in his pocket. Entered the premises with, in my opinion, the intent to kill, and was then given an extremely lenient sentence at court.

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