'Being stabbed at 15 left me suffering lifelong trauma'

Natashia Lee tells Holly Evans that better preventative measures need to be introduced to the education system

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"I live in constant fear of a bad feeling, it's a psychological scar that won't ever be healed," Natashia Lee explains as she recalls the traumatic time she was stabbed seven times at school by her childhood bullies.

The teenager woke on the morning of 10 November 2005 with a sense of dread in her stomach after suffering nightmares about her tormentors, who denigrated her for her perceived love of heavy metal music.

Later that day, after exiting the dinner queue at Collingwood College in Surrey, she would be stabbed seven times by three girls, requiring extensive eye surgery after being injured by a pair of scissors. Two would go on to receive community orders, while her main assailant would be detained for more than three years.

Now, 20 years later, Ms Lee, then known as Natashia Jackman, has been left horrified after a spate of recent school stabbings all too reminiscent of her own experience. Last month, a 15-yearold pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Harvey Willgoose, also 15, who was killed at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield.

A 14-year-old girl was also handed 15 years in detention after a knife rampage at her school in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, which left two teachers and a fellow pupil with stab wounds from her father’s multi-tool.

Due to the trauma of her own experience and her parents’ horror at the school’s inability to protect her from her bullies, Ms Lee relocated to the US to continue her education.

Despite her physical wounds healing, the mental scars remained, and she soon began to suffer from PTSD and flashbacks. Not only was she left traumatised but her mother later took her own life, having believed she had “failed” in her duties by sending her to school on that horrific day.