Morning:
13°c
Blunders let schizophrenic go on stabbing spree after he arrived in UK
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent14.04.08
Social service blunders allowed a schizophrenic to stab a 12-year-old girl, a man in a wheelchair and a nurse hours after he arrived in Britain, the Old Bailey heard today.
Mental health workers had been ready to detain and section Mahabubur Rahman, 28, when he landed at Heathrow airport from Bangladesh in June last year. But he flew in on a different flight and went on a three-hour rampage through the streets of London, during which he stabbed his victims.
Rahman, of St Pancras, was detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act today after admitting three counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Three charges of attempted murder, which he denied, were ordered to remain on the court file.
The Old Bailey heard he had left Britain to visit family in Bangladesh last summer where he stopped taking medication for paranoid schizophrenia. When he vanished, his relatives contacted Camden and Islington Social Services whichmissed him at Heathrow.
Rahman went to his home to pick up a knife and attacked his first victim, Antonin Giraud, a few streets away from his house in Camden. Prosecutor Ken Nelson said: "Mr Giraud was phoning his girlfriend in France from a telephone box in Argyle Square. He was in a wheelchair, his left leg in plaster.
"After the phone call he wheeled himself towards the gardens of the square and passed Rahman, who came behind him and put his arms around the victim's shoulders.
"He pushed or forced Mr Giraud out of his wheelchair and on to the ground. Mr Giraud offered him money but the defendant said nothing. The victim shuffled along the ground saying, 'Please don't kill me, I have nothing.'" But Rahman slashed his back and shoulders, leaving him with a six inch wound before running off when two members of the public tried to intervene.
Two-and-a-half hours later he struck in Edgware Road where a 12-year-old German girl was walking back to her hotel with her parents. "Rahman grabbed the girl by the right side of her head, pulled her head to one side and stabbed her in the left side of her neck with the knife. He then turned and watched before calmly walking away," Mr Nelson said. The child was treated for a deep wound which had severed major nerves.
The rampage continued half-an-hour later when Rahman spotted Italian nurse Luca Zampedri in nearby Gower Street and slashed his face and neck. The man was left with a 4in gash to his face and 3in slash on his neck.
Rahman continued to threaten and lash out with his knife even when finally picked up by police as he tried to break into his sister's home in Camden.
Dr Simon Williams, of Chase Farm medium secure hospital, Barnet, told the court Rahman presented a danger to others. Judge Richard Hone sectioned him under section 37 of the Mental Health Act and ordered that he must not be released before attending a Mental Health Tribunal. He said: "You are a danger when you disengage from your medication."
Reader views (5)
It is a tragedy when innocent people are attacked by someone with acute mental distress and one's first thoughts are with the victims. Mr Rahman needed help too, and clearly the system has failed him also. To report the story in this way by highlighting the link between his illness and the crime - without putting into context just how rare these events are (homicide by people with schizophrenia has reduced 50% since the 1950s, whereas the general murder rate has increased by 500% in the same period) and by defining him as a "schizophrenic" (when nobody should be defined by either a physical or mental health problem) stigmatises all people who experience schizophrenia, the vast majority of whom pose no threat to society. The net result of stigma is that people are less likely to seek the help they need.
- Jonathan Naess, London
I went to secondary school with him. He was in my class. At that time he was a very nice boy. I feel really sad after reading this story.
- Jolly, Camden
Joe is right in saying that social care is a shambles.
Medication helps people with mental health problems but therapies and education about what has befallen them has a part to play. Unfortunately not readily available.
- Ann, London
St Pancras, Argyle Square - that area is King's Cross. I used to live in that area. The place is basically crazy-town with many hostels full of nuts like this. Don't let all that King's Cross regeneration talk fool you - you risk your life living among the crazy people there.
- Sickened, London, UK
Give it a couple of years, good behaviour, a promise to take medication and human rights he will be out again. I have no faith in today's society social care as its a shambles. Run by lunatics for lunatics!
- Joe Sardena, Swanley Kent
