A TEENAGER who stabbed her schoolfriend in the chest after a social media argument has been convicted of wounding with intent.

The girl, then aged 15, arranged to meet up with the friend to sort out a disagreement, but ended up plunging a 25cm long kitchen knife into him.

The boy, 16, was flown to hospital in a critical condition and required a series of operations to save his life.

Police arrested the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and seized her phone where the victim's number had been saved under the name "dead man walking".

Judge Stephen John today warned the girl at Reading Crown Court that had the boy died, she could have been facing an even more serious sentence.

He said: "In some ways you are fortunate. Had it not been for the fact that he was taken by air ambulance to the John Radcliffe Hospital and was able to get into theatre and be operated on by an extremely skilled and experienced surgeon you could have been facing charges of murder here.

"Be under no misapprehension that when you come back before me you will be going back to custody for a very significant period."

A jury of nine men and three women unanimously found the girl, now 16, not guilty of attempted murder, choosing to convict her of wounding with intent after two hours and 35 minutes of deliberations.

Describing events on June 7 at the opening of the trial on Monday, Sally Mealing-Mcleod, prosecuting, said: "She reached into her hooded top and produced a large smooth-bladed kitchen knife 25cm long.

"She held it in her right hand and raised it above her head.

"He grabbed her right wrist with his hands to defend himself.

"She took the knife in her left hand and raised it above her head and brought it down, making contact with the right side of his chest."

The teenage victim, who went to the same school as the girl, also took the stand to tell jurors in his own words how he recalled the attack.

He said: "It wasn't necessarily a sharp pain, it felt like a hit and I just didn't know what was happening and was confused because I thought she was joking.

"She pulled her hand back and went to strike me two more times."

He later added: "I didn't think that someone who was my friend, someone who I walked to school with, is actually going to stab me."

Ed Butler, defending, said that messages sent by the boy showed that he had intended to wind up the girl and start a fight between them.

He said: "That is why you grabbed her hand. Not because you thought she was going to stab you, but because you went there with a fight in mind."

The boy denied this and said the messages he had sent were just jokes and were only meant sarcastically.

The girl was remanded to appear back at Reading Crown Court on January 8 for sentencing.