Man jailed for life for stabbing two police officers in the West End

Daniel Keane8 December 2023
WEST END FINAL

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A man has been jailed for life for stabbing two police officers in the West End.

Mohamed Rahman, 25, knifed police constable Joseph Gerrard in the neck and chest and PC Alannah Mulhall in the arm early on September 16 last year while intoxicated.

He will serve a minimum term of 20 years for the attack.

Rahman, of Notting Hill, was convicted in October after a trial at Kingston Crown Court of the attempted murder of PC Gerrard and grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent against PC Mulhall.

He was also convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against Pc Richard Ulla, two counts of threatening a person in a public place with a bladed article against two other officers and possession of a bladed article.

Rahman was further found guilty of robbing a member of the public, Mark Graven, which triggered the police pursuit.

He was given a minimum term of 20 years, minus the 449 days he has already spent on remand.

Bodycam footage shown to the court in October showed how the police chase unfolded on foot through the streets.

Two female officers had first pursued Rahman after Mr Graven told police the defendant had revealed to him a knife before taking his phone powerbank in Shaftesbury Avenue.

Over the course of the police pursuit, Rahman stabbed both PC Mulhall and PC Gerrard with a kitchen knife he had appropriated, and inflicted a cut to Pc Richard Ulla’s finger.

Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire

Judge Rajeev Shetty told Rahman: “I am sure that you are capable of the most violent kind of behaviour to others which has the potential to kill.”

He added: “Anyone who is unhinged enough to attack a group of police officers …poses an even greater risk to the public.”

In a statement made in February, read out to the court, PC Gerrard said he had been left “in agony every single day” for months and that his life had come to a “complete standstill”. He is still not back to "zero pain".

He said: “It has been an uphill struggle to get myself free from injury.

“It has been a long, frustrating year. My life has been on hold.

“I’m sick and tired of how long rehabilitation is taking.”

Pc Mulhall read two statements out in court, the first made in February, in which she said: “It was a terrifying incident to be part of and will forever scar me mentally and physically.”

She told the court how she moved back to her parents’ house and “essentially became an infant again”.

“After the incident I cried for 96 days in a row,” she said.

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