Schoolboy stabbed his classmate to death for refusing to give him biscuits

The schoolboy who stabbed his classmate to death has been identified by the police as, Daniel Stroud.



Stroud, who turned 18 today, was legally protected from being identified during his trial for the death of 16-year-old Bailey Gwynne who he stabbed in 2015 after he refused giving him biscuits.

Now he is officially an adult, we publish photographs of Stroud taken during the six-day murder trial in Aberdeen, Dailyrecord reports.

The jury found him guilty of the lesser crime of culpable homicide, today Stroud spent his landmark birthday behind bars after being sentenced last March.

Stroud will be eligible to apply for parole after serving half his sentence – and could walk free still aged 20.

He was first named and pictured by the Daily Record in the hours after the school stabbing on Wednesday, October 28, 2015.

The Press were prohibited from publishing photographs of the bulky 16-year-old despite his conviction, while his dead victim’s face appeared everywhere.

The victim

Bailey’s family had to listen to harrowing evidence of how he died in a school corridor confrontation at Aberdeen’s respected Cults Academy, sparked by a row over biscuits.

School pals told how Bailey, 16, who dreamed of becoming a marine, refused to give Stroud a biscuit.

The fifth-year pupils squared up when someone called Bailey’s mum “fat” and, as they wrestled, Stroud pulled a knife and plunged it into Bailey’s heart.

Stroud had bought the 8.5cm folding knife for £40 from Amazon and had it delivered to his home.

His head teacher, Anna Muirhead, told the trial she warned him about knives when he was “in first year or early second year”.

A police expert found Google searches on Stroud’s laptop that suggested he was a ticking timebomb. His searches included “Knife Merchant”, “Illegal Knives UK” and “Knuckleduster UK”.
He had also researched Aberdeen stabbings, “difference between a homicide and a murder” and “how to get rid of someone annoying”.

Fellow pupils told how Stroud regularly showed off knives and knuckle-dusters on the bus and at school.

Bailey died in a pool of blood after a fight broke out over sharing biscuits during the lunch-hour.

Stroud, a troubled misfit with a difficult home life, told police he bought the knife online “because they don’t check if you’re 18 or not”.

He added: “You just leave a note on the door saying there’s no one in and asking for the package to be left in the shed.”

He said of the knife: “It just looked cool.

“It had a gold handle and green or blue dots on it. I had a knife because I’ve never fit in. I was trying to act tough and be cool.”

A fellow pupil told the Record: “He’s got a really horrible, weird obsession with knives, knuckledusters, matches and lighters.

“He sometimes used to take them to school in his pocket.

“He regularly carried knives. He likes violent stuff.

“And he would never shy away from a fight.

“He wouldn’t start them all the time but, if someone started one with him, he wouldn’t back off.”

Sentencing Stroud on April 1 last year, judge Lady Stacey told him: “If you had not carried a knife, the exchange of insults between you and Bailey Gwynne would have led, at worst, to a fistfight without more serious injury and almost certainly no loss of life.”