Knife attacker detained indefinitely in hospital

A man who attacked a woman and her two young children with a knife has been ordered to be detained in a secure hospital indefinitely.

Kulvinder Ram, 50, cut the woman's neck and seriously injured her two-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter at a house in Dagenham, east London, on 25 October 2024.

He was convicted at the Old Bailey in May of the attempted murder of the woman and the boy, and of causing grievous bodily harm to the girl, after a four-week trial.

On Friday, Judge Mark Lucraft KC made a hospital order with no limit of time under the Mental Health Act.

The court heard Ram had undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time of the attack and had become increasingly paranoid, believing he was being watched by cameras.

He had threatened to kill one of the victims two weeks earlier.

The court heard how the woman had run out of the house with a visible cut to her neck and shouted that Ram was killing her, saying: "My baby, my baby", in reference to the boy inside.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman, who cannot be identified, addressed Ram directly. "I don't know how we got here. Your actions have changed everything," she said.

She said she had been left with a scar on her neck and became upset every time she saw it in the mirror.

"My daughter has now got scarring to the left-hand side of her face, which will be there for life," she said.

"What happened to me, I can bear it, but this should never have happened to my daughter."

She said she accepted Ram had been unwell, but that he should have taken his family's advice and seen his GP.

Ram, from Dagenham, was detained at the scene by an off-duty special sergeant with the Metropolitan Police, Seff Serroukh, who was walking home from work when he saw the woman and her daughter covered in blood. From a distance, he thought it was a Halloween prank.

"When I became aware children were involved, I knew I had to act quickly," he said. "I had no safety equipment, no colleagues to assist."

He held Ram on the ground until other officers arrived.

Det Con Lewis Whitlock said the investigation had left no doubt Ram intended to kill. He said a member of the public who went into the house and tried to stem one victim's bleeding had also helped save a life.

All three victims needed surgery.

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