{"id":5593,"date":"2026-05-06T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/5593\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T05:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T05:00:13","slug":"melbourne-principal-still-too-traumatised-to-work-after-being-stabbed-by-school-teacher-court-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/5593\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne principal still too traumatised to work after being stabbed by school teacher, court hears"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Melbourne school principal remains too traumatised to return to work after fighting for his life when a knife-wielding teacher attacked him.<\/p>\n

Keysborough Secondary College principal Aaron Sykes was ambushed in his office last December when Kim Ramchen “mentally snapped”, the Magistrates’ Court heard.<\/p>\n

Mr Sykes suffered cuts to his jaw, cheek, lip and arm and was traumatised by what occurred.<\/p>\n

He remains on WorkCover and has not returned to his job.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Aaron Sykes has not returned to his role as principal since the attack. (Supplied: Keysborough Secondary College)<\/p>\n

“No-one at their workplace could ever imagine that a colleague would attack them, and attack them with a knife,” prosecutor JJ Jassar said.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Ramchen faced an online hearing and pleaded guilty to intentionally causing injury and assault. Prosecutors dropped two other charges.<\/p>\n

At the time of the attack, he was experiencing marriage difficulties, was upset about his teaching contract not being renewed, and was hooked on painkillers, his defence lawyer said.<\/p>\n

Other teachers rescued principal from attack, court hears<\/p>\n

The court heard Ramchen entered the office in “an aggressive manner” and tried to stab the principal with a knife.<\/p>\n

“Kim, what is going on?” Mr Sykes said.<\/p>\n

The court heard Ramchen wrestled Mr Sykes to the ground and was holding the knife above his head.<\/p>\n

Other teachers rushed into the office and were able disarm Ramchen, before he fled through the school.<\/p>\n

Mr Sykes’s colleagues were unable to lock the door and Ramchen returned, this time brandishing a chef’s knife taken from a staff room.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor said Ramchen jumped on top of the principal for a second time and tried to stab him.<\/p>\n

“It took three people to pull Ramchen to the ground,” Mr Jassar said.<\/p>\n

“The principal ran out of the office. He was covered in blood and was in shock.”<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Ramchen was taken into custody after being wrestled to the ground by other teachers. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

A school nurse who treated Mr Sykes described his injuries as “distressing”.<\/p>\n

“What will always remain etched in my memory is the look of fear on Aaron’s face as he was fighting for his life,” she said in a victim impact statement.<\/p>\n

Teacher blames mental break for attack<\/p>\n

During a police interview, Ramchen stated that he “mentally snapped”, the court heard.<\/p>\n

“My blood just went to my head, and I became incredibly angry and emotional,” he said.<\/p>\n

Ramchen’s barrister, Amelia Beech, said her client’s undiagnosed mental health issues and personal struggles “collided in a spectacular fashion”.<\/p>\n

\"Kim<\/p>\n

Kim Ramchen told police the blood went to his head before the attack. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old, who holds a PhD in computer networks and scored 99.95 as a VCE student, had no history of violence before the incident, Ms Beech said.<\/p>\n

Ms Beech said her client had since been diagnosed with autism and depression with anxious distress.<\/p>\n

“Kim Ramchen has lost everything. He’s lost his wife, his child, his career and his liberty,” Ms Beech said.<\/p>\n

“When he’s ultimately released, he will need to rebuild his entire existence from scratch.”<\/p>\n

Ramchen has been in custody since last December, and Ms Beech called on Deputy Chief Magistrate Tim Bourke to impose a sentence that included a period of rehabilitation in the community.<\/p>\n

“This is a man in need of treatment,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ramchen will be sentenced on May 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Melbourne school principal remains too traumatised to return to work after fighting for his life when a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6935,312,6933,6932,260,6934,1019,1329,4226],"class_list":{"0":"post-5593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-melbourne","8":"tag-acacia-campus","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-keysborough-secondary-college","11":"tag-kim-ramchen","12":"tag-melbourne","13":"tag-principal","14":"tag-school","15":"tag-stabbing","16":"tag-teacher"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}