By Tom Gillespie, News reporter @TomGillespie1
The 14-year-old boy killed in a sword attack in London yesterday was a pupil at the same school attended by Nottingham stabbing victim Grace O’Malley-Kumar, Sky News understands.
The development comes after Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said one of the officers injured in the rampage in Hainault nearly lost her hand while apprehending the suspect on Tuesday morning.
The schoolboy who was killed was a student at Bancroft’s private school in Woodford Green.
Grace O’Malley-Kumar – who was killed in a knife attack in Nottingham in June last year – was a former student at the school.
The school’s flag is flying at half mast today after the most recent tragedy.
Ms O’Malley Kumar’s parents offered support to the schoolboy’s family this morning.
Four other people were injured in the attack in northeast London, including the female police officer and another officer.
None of their injures are thought to be life-threatening.
Police have said they don’t think it was a targeted attack, or terror-related, and they were working to establish the circumstances of what took place.
Officers were initially called to the scene at 7am with footage showing police apprehending a sword-wielding suspect after he was tasered.
Sir Mark has said officers were “on the ground in 12 minutes” and that “some of the first contacts led to officers being very severely injured”.
He said the two officers who were hospitalised suffered “horrifically serious injuries”.
Speaking on LBC this morning, he added: “I was talking to the family and colleagues of the woman officer who has a really badly damaged arm, really seriously damaged, the surgeon spent many hours basically putting her arm back together.”
Asked about reports she nearly lost her hand in the attack, Sir Mark said they were “not a million miles away”.
An inspector also suffered a serious hand injury during the police response, with Sir Mark adding: “I saw him before the operation, he was in good spirits… I think that’s partly the morphine, to be honest.”
Sir Mark did not confirm whether the two officers in hospital were the ones seen tasering the attacker.
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