A 'highly intelligent' 16-year-old schoolboy has been given a life sentence for the attempted murder of a 12-year-old girl.
Wearing a hooded top and surgical gloves, Cameron Cleland, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, stabbed his victim in the throat with a blunt penknife and then strangled her after luringthe girl to a secluded lane.
The girl survived because a dog walker stumbled across the attack and told her to run home, Bradford Crown Court heard.
Cleland, who was described as highly intelligent but 'slightly geeky', had become infatuated with the girl and bombarded her
with text messages.
Prosecutor Michael Smith told the court he had been unable to cope with the girl's rejection, and devised a 'chilling' plan to rape and murder her.
Cleland - said to be from 'an entirely proper family' - searched the internet for ways of killing the victim before deciding he would 'gut her like a pig'.
He even practised in front of his bedroom mirror before luring the girl to a quiet country location.
He told psychiatrists he blamed her for his plight and would have been prepared to go to prison for the rest of his life if he had succeeded in killing her.
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