A Good Samaritan who bravely confronted a knife attacker on a public path was today rewarded by Teesside’s most senior judge.
David McNicholas was on his way home from the shops when he saw a woman being attacked on a footpath between Flatts Lane and the Trunk Road in Normanby.
He came to her aid when he saw Tony Griffin, 20, making “deliberate methodical slashing movements” at her with a kitchen knife.
He blocked Griffin and advanced on him holding his car keys when the victim ran behind him for safety. A female dog walker shouted at the attacker and called 999.
Griffin walked away and ran into the path of a vehicle on Normanby Road and was arrested after a chase. The victim escaped with mainly superficial injuries.
The severely autistic assailant was given an indefinite hospital order at Teesside Crown Court yesterday.
Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, said: “That she did not sustain further injuries or any greater injuries was due in part to her courage, but also due to the courageous intervention of Mr McNicholas.”
Today he went further, saying: “One of the merciful aspects of the case was that the attack was forestalled to an extent by the intervention of a passer-by.”
He ordered that Mr McNicholas should receive £350 from public funds.
Griffin, of Sandmoor Close, Eston, was detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act yesterday, on psychiatrists’ recommendation.
He will not be released until doctors and a mental health tribunal decide it is safe.
The court heard how his severe autism led him to attack the woman, whom he had met via a dating website, with a knife after she broke off his first relationship.
He pinned her down and slashed at her neck, chest and face two days after she told him she just wanted to be friends, Teesside Crown Court heard.
She bravely fought him off and later showed her attacker “a level of understanding and forgiveness that is remarkable and commendable”, said the judge.
Judge Bourne-Arton said Griffin was “an exceedingly dangerous young man” who could not accept rejection because of his condition.
He said he would have considered jailing Griffin for life if it were not for his mental disorder.
He said the condition made it “difficult if not impossible” for Griffin to manage social relationships - and prison would make it worse.
The judge said: “You carried out a brutal, unprovoked, prolonged and indeed vicious attack upon an entirely innocent young woman.
“She had shown you nothing but friendship.
“What was precisely in your mind at the time that you attacked her, perhaps nobody knows. Perhaps you do not know.
“For as long as you suffer from this illness, you will pose a significant danger to the public and particularly to young women.”
He said the sentence was designed to protect the public and help Griffin receive treatment.
Griffin denied attempted murder but admitted wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm and possession of a bladed article.
He seemed to accept the woman’s wish just to be friends, said prosecutor Nick Dry yesterday.
But his father visited the woman expressing concern he might react differently because of his autism.
She and Griffin, both 20, met and talked on the Normanby footpath on the afternoon of March 24.
She became scared as he tried to take her to a small hut and a wooded area. When she said he was nice, he said she was wrong.
Wearing black gloves on a warm day, he attacked her with a kitchen knife from his family home.
She fled but he brought her to the ground making “deliberate methodical slashing movements”.
The petrified victim put up a strong struggle and ran when a dog walker shouted at Griffin and called 999,
After his arrest he told police he was shocked after he lost control and took his anger out on the woman wanting “to hurt her as she had hurt him”.
Dr Helen Pearce said all of his offending stemmed from his autism which, though subtle and not fitting a stereotype, had a huge impact and made him vulnerable.
Lacking autism-specific treatment and with a poor understanding of relationships, he would be “taught the wrong things” in jail.
Michael Bosomworth, defending, said Griffin was well brought up by a decent family but had been bullied, ridiculed and picked on.
He said this was Griffin’s first sexual experience and his first proper relationship: “When told that it was over and they were just friends, his brain can’t compute what that means. For him, none of this made sense.”
He said Griffin saw things in black and white, thought she was making fun of him and “snapped” at a comment about his father.
He added: “What he wanted to do was to make her think he was trying to kill her, in his disordered mind punishing her for the wrongs that he thought she had done him.
“He understands that it will be many years before he’s able to be released into the community, and there’s a long road ahead of him.”
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