A knifeman who stabbed a woman to death in North-West London was knocked down and killed by a passing motorist in an alleged effort to disarm the killer, with the driver himself arrested for suspected murder.
The Metropolitan Police have launched “an urgent investigation” into two deaths which occurred around 9 am on the 24th of January 2022 in Maida Vale, a residential district in leftist Mayor Sadiq Khan’s London. It is reported one of those deaths was a 43-year-old lady killed in a knife attack and the second by an alleged vigilante using a car to stop the first attacker, a 41-year-old man.
According to eyewitness testimonies published in The Telegraph, the attacker ran up to a “girl”, with “blonde hair” and proceeded to stab her “again and again, all over her body” up to “as many as ten times”, while shouting “take it, take it”. Members of the public apparently attempted to stop the attack, but the knifeman allegedly “would chase them away and wave his knife at them”, to prevent them from apprehending him.
Eyewitnesses then claim the stabbing was eventually stopped when a passerby ran over and managed to push the attacker off of the “bleeding” woman. The knifeman then went to attack the man who pushed him off the girl, but as he went to do so a passing car mowed him down, it is claimed.
Passerbys then tried to help the lady who was “bleeding heavily”, and ignored the attacker “who had been crushed by the car” and was repeatedly shouting “help me, help me”.
A spokesperson for the London Ambulance Service said that “despite our medics’ efforts”, both the woman and her killer were pronounced dead “at the scene”.
Detective Chief Inspector Neil Smithson of the London Metropolitan Police said that police are still “working to establish exactly what has happened”.
There have been several high profile self-defence cases in Britain.
In 2018 Richard Osborn-Brooks, a 78-year-old man, was arrested by the Metropolitan police on suspicion of murder when he killed a burglar in his home.
Osborn-Brooks unintentionally killed career criminal Henry Vincent when he and an accomplice attempted to burgle the house Osborn-Brooks shared with his elderly wife. Vincent, 32, was wearing a balaclava and high on “cocaine and heroin” when during the robbery, he threatened the pensioner with a screwdriver.
Osborn-Brooks managed to grab a kitchen knife and ended up struggling with the armed intruder. During the scuffle, the burglar sustained a single stab wound to the chest, later dying at University Hospital Lewisham.
The pensioner was cleared of all charges a year later in 2019 at a coroner’s inquest after intense press and public interest in the case.
Osborn-Brooks was never felt able to return to his home due to alleged death threats and fears of reprisals from the community Vincent, the man he killed, was from.
Another prominent self-defence incident in Britain is the case of Tony Martin. British farmer Martin was initially jailed for life in April 2000 after he lay in wait in his farmhouse for two burglars, after being burgled multiple times before, and shot them both, killing Fred Barras, 16, and wounding accomplice Brendon Fearon, 29.
The jury found Martin guilty of murdering Barras and he was sentenced to life in prison at Norwich Crown Court, and the two surviving burglars were too jailed – Fearon for three years and the getaway driver Darren Bark for 30 months.
However, after public outcry, the revelation that Martin has Aspergers, and an appeal against Martin’s conviction, Martin had his charge downgraded to manslaughter and sentence reduced to five years, and was released after three in 2003.
When asked in 2018 if he was troubled by the death of Marras, Martin, now 74, responded that he wasn’t bothered as “what goes around, comes around”.
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