STUDENTS from Symondsbury Primary School will have to be as insightful as Sherlock Holmes as part of an educational project.

Pupils from Class Three at the West Dorset school will become detectives as they take part in a mock trial to try and find out who killed the school’s headteacher, Emma Roberts.

The project is the brainchild of world-renowned human rights lawyer and school governor Clive Stafford Smith in a bid to educate the children on the rights and wrongs of the criminal justice system.

It will take place between Monday and Wednesday, when the schoolchildren will have to figure out which of the three suspects, Ms Jenkin, Mrs Griggs and Mr White, killed headteacher Mrs Roberts.

The “trial of the century” will then be launched and the students will have to work out what happened, scouring for clues in the school’s field.

Three teachers will be named as suspects, Ms Jenkin, Mrs Griggs and Mr White, and all three will have their fingerprints taken as part of the mock trial. Mr Stafford will play the judge.

Speaking of the event, schoolteacher Lisa Jenkin said: “I am a little concerned because one of the student prosecutors in my class appears to have decided I am “99 per cent guilty” already.

“Fortunately, “His Honour” Clive Stafford Smith will work with the student judges to instruct the prosecutors that they need to be rather more impartial.”

By Wednesday, the trial will go to the student jury who will then deliberate the matter before deciding who is guilty of the crime.

The students will also learn about “The Bridport Dagger” and the death penalty, as the rope for the hangman’s noose was made in Bridport factories.

Mr Stafford Smith said he was looking forward to the event. He said: “This is all about letting young students know about the justice system and human rights in what purports to be a real-life case.

“I hope also to get a few recruits for the next generations so I can quietly retire to the countryside.”