Mentally disturbed woman stabbed stranger

Rebecca Jackson targeted Tanya Mitcham, then a student nurse, when she saw her waiting for a bus in Leeds on April 18 last year telling police later she thought it was her mother.

Earlier that morning Jackson had walked out of Leeds General Infirmary where she was waiting to be assessed because of her earlier behaviour, after telling a staff nurse she wanted to kill her mother.

Jonathan Sharp, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court yesterday Jackson then stole a 20cm long chef’s knife from a store before making for the central bus station.

She sent a male friend a text saying: “Nicked a knife to kill the diff hey ho since u don’t love me anymore”.

Minutes later Miss Mitcham, who was eating a sandwich and composing a text message as she sat waiting for a bus to Wakefield, suddenly felt “like someone was punching me”.

She told a jury the first was on the back of her right shoulder and two more blows followed, one in the middle of the back, the other to her left armpit, but at the time was in shock and only realised that later from her scars.

She got up and turned to see a woman she did not know behind her holding a knife. “I realised I wasn’t being punched I was actually being stabbed. I felt pain in my left arm and when I touched my arm I realised there was blood flowing out. I went into shock and started screaming.

She broke down briefly saying: “Everyone seemed to be staring at me and I was shouting at them to call an ambulance. They were looking at me. It didn’t feel like anyone was going to help me. I started stumbling backwards, I think a lady caught me and laid me on the floor.”

The jury heard she was subsequently rushed to hospital where she had lifesaving surgery, having suffered massive blood loss because one of the wounds had severed an artery to her arm.

Jackson, 20 of Aston Terrace, Bramley, Leeds, was found by the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC to be under a disability and unfit to plead to a charge of attempted murder after three psychiatrists agreed she was suffering from an emotionally unstable personality disorder.

But after hearing evidence a jury agreed Jackson did the act charged against her.

The judge told the jury it was a very sad case. Jackson will be made the subject of a Hospital Order under the Mental Health Act today after he hears evidence from a psychiatrist about her detention. He said should she ever recover, which was unlikely, she could face trial in the future.

Earlier Holly Pettit told the jury a woman had barged into her at the bus station shortly before she heard a girl screaming. She then saw the woman was holding a black handled knife and had stabbed the girl.

She went to her aid. Blood was spilling out from her back where there was a “big gaping hole”. She applied pressure until paramedics arrived.

Karen Downend described seeing a woman with a crazed expression coming towards her and her friend from the direction of the bus station, who dropped some packaging which turned out to be from a chef’s knife. “I was going to chase after her but when my friend said ‘she’s got a knife’ I stopped.”

She said it was only then she saw the knife in the woman’s hand. “She was waving it about. There was blood dripping as she was walking and I thought she had cut herself.”

She and her friend went into the market to hand over the packaging to a police officer but the office there was shut. She rang the police and they said they were aware of the incident and were on their way. They then followed the blood trail up Vicar Lane to where an officer was cordoning the area off and handed the packaging over.

Pc David McNalus said he accompanied Jackson to hospital for treatment to cuts on her hand after arresting her and she had periods of agitation saying at one point “I thought I saw my mother so I stabbed her.”