A TEENAGE girl plotted to kill her grandmother and attacked her in the kitchen by hitting her over the head with a bass guitar.

The 14-year-old had messaged friends in advance of the attack, describing how she would kill her victim.

After the attack, she initially faced a charge of attempted murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, which was accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service.

The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at Swindon Crown Court for sentencing on Friday.

The attack took place on February 19.

The girl had become isolated from society after dropping out of school, and things got worse due to the Covid pandemic. The only friends she had were online ones.

Prosecutor Robert Welling said: "She lived in a virtual world and spent most of her time socialising on the internet with a group of friends."

Her grandmother worried the online friends were grooming her but the messages didn't support that and showed the girl talking about being unhappy at home and wanting to leave.

The chats developed into her saying she wanted to kill her grandmother, wanted her "out of the way" and that she was going to do it and needed her friends' help.

The chats showed the friends thought she was joking and they had made attempts to dissuade her.

The girl planned which day to carry out the attack and considered using a knife or a guitar to kill her victim in her sleep.

She had the idea of targeting the grandmother's head as her skull was weakened by a previous serious injury.

On the day of the attack, the grandmother refused to give the girl her phone, due to concerns over the amount of time she was spending online, and moments later, while the grandmother was cooking in the kitchen, the girl attacked her from behind.

She struck the back of her neck with the heavy end of a bass guitar.

Mr Welling said: "The grandmother thought the ceiling had collapsed on her head. She turned around to see the granddaughter with the guitar."

The grandmother got the bass guitar off the girl, who then picked up an electric guitar. There were three to five individual blows, leaving the victim with bleeding and bruising.

The grandmother made such a noise the neighbours came to her rescue and one waited with the girl in another room while the police arrived.

The girl told the neighbour she was trying to kill her grandmother and later made the same admissions to the police — she felt killing her grandmother was the only way to get freedom and she felt stifled, Mr Welling said.

Mr Welling said: "It was a wholly naive plan as to where she would go (afterwards) and what she would achieve.

"She thought she could take a car, learn to drive and get off the Island, get to Scotland and start a revolution in Europe.

"It betrays the level of maturity of this young individual."

A statement from the victim was read out in court. She said: "This was a girl who believed she would be a mermaid or a My Little Pony if she died," and said she had been let down by CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services).

She said it was her wish for her granddaughter to be treated for mental health issues.

She said during the attack, her granddaughter had had a robotic look on her face with a lack of emotion.

Jodie Mittell, representing the girl, said the probation report showed remorse and regret, and it was plain the girl had been describing an upsetting home life going back many years.

She said the girl had spent seven months in custody already and a detention and training order was not available as she was not a persistent offender.

The options were to detain her for a longer period, or make her subject to a youth rehabilitation order, and she said custody was a last resort for all children.

Judge Peter Crabtree said he didn't see the safeguarding of the child as extreme but the grandmother hadn't noticed how imprisoned the child felt through being socially isolated and estranged from other family members.

He referred to an expert report which found the child had spiralled into a situation which left her desperate to take control of her own life and could see the only ways out as 'suicide or escaping oppression'.

He said the intention of the girl "was at least to cause really serious harm at a grave level" and concluded it was an exceptional case.

He said the girl wouldn't be returning to the family home — "the environment that triggered this event" but would be re-integrated into education and society.

He made her subject of a two-year youth rehabilitation order where she would be cared for on the mainland under strict conditions, including a three-month curfew from 7pm to 7am and 90 days' rehabilitation requirement.