School hammer attack: Accused said he had sleepwalked before

The teenager said he slept with a hammer under his pillow “for protection from the zombie apocalypse”.

“I thought the apocalypse was real and I do today,” he said.

“Zombies are vicious creatures.”

The defendant said he liked the victims.

One was a “very generous and friendly boy” and the other was “very kind”, he said.

“There were times we had arguments or disagreements,” he said about the younger boy.

“They did not last a long time, not really. I was happy about sharing a room with him and the older boy.”

He said his housemaster Henry Roffe Silvester had questioned him about bullying the younger boy in the dorm.

The defendant said: “I did not perceive it as that.”

Previously, the jury was told that the two boys were asleep in cabin-style beds in one of the school’s boarding houses when the defendant climbed up and attacked them.

Mr Roffe-Silvester, who was asleep in his own quarters, was woken by noises from the boarding house and went to investigate.

When he entered the bedroom, he saw a silhouetted figure standing in the room who turned towards him and repeatedly struck him over the head with a hammer, the court heard.

Both boys suffered skull fractures, as well as injuries to their ribs, spleen, a punctured lung and internal bleeding.

Mr Roffe-Silvester suffered six blows to his head.

The trial continues.