A homeless man who stabbed an 11-year-old girl with a kitchen knife during a random attack in Leicester Square has been detained indefinitely in a secure hospital.
The youngster ‘thought she was going to die’ when Ioan Pintaru, 33, put her in a headlock and repeatedly plunged the blade into her face, neck and shoulder.
Pintaru approached the girl as she left the Lego store at around 11.30am with her mum while they were sightseeing during a dream trip from Australia to see Taylor Swift perform at Wembley Stadium.
He admitted wounding with intent but denied attempted murder – a plea accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service having concluded his psychosis meant it could not be proven he had an intent to kill.
Pintaru was sentenced at the Old Bailey on Tuesday to a hospital order under Section 37 of the Mental Health Act and a restriction order under Section 41 – meaning he can be detained indefinitely.
Judge Richard Marks KC said: ‘A victim impact statement from (the victim’s) mother described how when the incident unfolded in front of her she believed with absolute certainty that she was watching her daughter being killed in front of her and how she relives that moment over and over.’
Opening the case, prosecutor Heidi Stonecliffe KC said the girl described in an interview with police how she felt something crash into her from behind and hit her on the head.
‘She felt the defendant’s arm wrap itself around her,’ Ms Stonecliffe said.
‘His weight was on her. She said in the interview that at that moment she thought she was going to die.
‘She felt the defendant stab her in the face and felt the blood from the wound running down her face.
‘She was understandably terrified.’
Her mother, who watched proceedings over a video link, told police she saw Pintaru ‘furiously and repeatedly’ stabbing her daughter.
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She said his arm was moving ‘like a jackhammer’ using ‘as much force as he could’ and that she thought ‘he was trying to kill her’ with a ‘crazed and vacant’ expression.
She added that he was ‘wide-eyed and manic like nothing was going to stop him’.
A security guard working at TWG Tea, named only as Abdullah, rushed to intervene and managed to grab Pintaru’s knife-wielding hand, leading the defendant to drop the weapon which Abdullah then kicked away.
He and two other men were able to pin Pintaru down before police arrived minutes later and arrested him.
A nurse who happened to be walking past stopped to help stem the 11-year-old’s bleeding after she fell to the ground having been released by the defendant.
The court heard the girl, now 13, has recovered physically from her wounds but that ‘invisible scars’ remain.
‘She is deeply conscious of her scars,’ Ms Stonecliffe said. ‘The psychological effects of this incident will remain with (her) for the rest of her life.’
The court heard Pintaru became upset during his interview with the police, particularly when officers told him they were going to show him pictures of the injuries he inflicted.
He is said to have put his head in his hands, cried and said ‘no’ to the prospect of viewing CCTV footage of the attack.
Pintaru, in the dock with what appeared to be three health workers, had previously been admitted to a psychiatric hospital in his native Romania, the court heard.
In assessments after the attack, Pintaru told one psychiatrist he had not wanted to commit the offence but believed he was being followed and that the only way to save himself was to get himself sent to prison, the prosecutor said.
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