This article was placed on www.truecrimefanatic.com under the ‘Inside the UK’ section. It was written just after Christmas in 2004.
The morning of Thursday 23 December 2004 started off like any other day just before Christmas. People were going about their ordinary business, on their way to work, school, college or Christmas shopping, thinking about the festive celebrations that were to take place that weekend or perhaps the office party that they had just had. Carol singers were raising money for charities in the shopping areas and the stores were adorned with decorations. Christmas cheer was in the hearts of most but in the midst of the hectic north London streets, busy with pedestrians and congested with motorists there was one man who had different plans for that day and what he had in mind would terrify the people of London, completely mystify the Metropolitan Police, lead to one man losing his life and leave five others seriously injured.
It was during the rush hour that the police were alerted to the first attack but little could they have known just how serious the situation would develop. A man had left his girlfriend and had walked across a road towards an underground station when a man approached him from behind and stabbed him. After stabbing him again the culprit ran off, got into his car and drove away in search of someone else he could inflict damage upon. Numerous fatal wounds were inflicted on one man who managed to stagger to a nearby building before collapsing. The police drove around the north London streets not knowing where their man would strike next. All six victims were wounded within an hour of one another in a five-mile area. They had all been attacked in public places and had received multiple stab wounds, inflicted from behind.
The attacks were indiscriminate with the knifeman choosing his victims at random, it seemed. Young women, young men, middle aged men of differing appearances were knifed without provocation. They were the actions of a madman, that much was clear, and the police were fortunate in that the mentally ill often do not take steps to prevent their identities being determined. A number of witnesses had seen the registration plates of the vehicle driven by the criminal and this enabled the police to trace where he lived. The owner of the car was a twenty eight year old man of Turkish origin and the Metropolitan Police would later confirm he had a history of mental illness.
As officers drove to the man’s north London home a picture of the suspect began to form. He had been a patient at a psychiatric hospital in Tottenham but, due to a reduction in funding of such hospitals, it was deemed appropriate to allow him to become a client of the ‘Care in the Community’ scheme whereby individuals will be visited in their own homes by community nurses. It was determined that depression and paranoia are what he suffers from and, as they learnt more about him, the police began to believe it was these illnesses, for which he had not been taking his prescribed medication, that caused the violent attacks.
Whilst they were waiting in view of the man’s home, anticipating some possible attack on themselves, the vehicle used in the mayhem pulled up outside the target’s house and a man casually walked to his front door. The police made their arrest, handcuffed him and bundled him into one of their vehicles. The nightmare had come to an end for the police. They had captured the man they believed was responsible for the atrocities. Yet for his victims and their families the nightmare was still very real. Two are still in critical conditions, fighting for their lives. The Turkish man has been charged with one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder, he could find the number of murder charges increasing.
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