I went to boarding school in Lymington, Hampshire, with Omar Benguit and when I heard about this, my instant reaction was that there was no way on earth he was capable of such a crime.
I know you can never say never, but Omar was, and is, one of the nicest lads I have ever met. And that's despite the type of school we were at, with kids that had emotional, behavioural or familial problems, I believe Omar's were of the latter. I got on very well with him.
There were some people the school could never have helped, Shaun Yeates, Anthony Rose, Kristopher Pohnert to mention a few, but it saved a lot of us from life's scrapheap, to the point I am still in contact with two of my teachers and a care assistant (father of Josh McQuoid, ex-AFC Bournemouth player) some 34 years later, long after Buckland School ceased to exist.