A man who stabbed a woman seven times after she turned down his romantic overtures, suspecting she had done so “because I am black”, has been convicted of attempted murder.
23-year-old Joseph Martelli hurled his victim to the floor at his home in the inner-city district of Holloway in the London borough of Islington — represented by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons — after she pulled away from an attempted kiss, demanding: “Is it because it because I am black?”
Martelli proceeded to throttle the young woman, before escalating is attack even further, stabbing her four times in the abdomen and three times in the neck, according to a Camden New Journal report.
Remarkably, she was able to escape Martelli and reach medical assistance, being saved by one of the major trauma centres which have been established in recent years — centres thought to have cut the number of homicides due to serious injury which England would otherwise be experiencing by some 1,656.
“This was a shocking attack on a young woman by a man she believed was her friend. It was completely unprovoked and senseless and the victim is lucky to be alive,” commented Peter Nugent for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
“The prosecution case included strong witness testimony from the victim and DNA evidence from the clumsy attempt to wipe clean the kitchen floor and the bloodied clothes in the washing machine,” he explained.
“We were also able to call on evidence from the defendant’s ex-partner where the jury was told how Martelli had previously strangled her in a similar manner on the same kitchen floor.”
A spokeswoman for the women’s refuge charity Solace Women’s Aid also described the attack has “horrific” and called for the court to impose a severe punishment when it passes sentence on Martelli in December.
“It is abhorrent that a woman’s right to say no led to such a vicious, life-threatening attack,” she said.
“It is also vital to highlight a perpetrator’s history of domestic abuse.”
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