An 11-year-old girl stabbed eight times with a steak knife in Leicester Square this week has been identified as an Australian tourist on holiday with her family.
Ioan Pintaru, a Romanian national of no fixed address, is charged with attempted murder after he allegedly clasped the 11-year-old girl and stabbed her, wounding her in the face, shoulder, wrist and neck.
The girl was with her 34-year-old mother when she was attacked in one of London’s busiest tourist spots at around 11.30 a.m. on Monday.
The victim was taken to hospital, she survived the attack but requires plastic surgery. It has now emerged that the mother and her daughter were Australian tourists.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs said it was offering assistance but did not specify what it was. A spokeswoman said:
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to two Australians injured in London. Owing to our privacy obligations we cannot provide further comment.
Pintaru, 32, also faces charges of possession of a stabbing object in a public place. During a brief trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, prosecutors argued that the weapon he used to attack the girl was a steak knife. Prosecutor David Burns told the court:
Fortunately members of the public intervened, which prevented any further injury to the child.
Abdullah, a security guard working at a TWG tea shop, was hailed by the British press as a hero for stopping the attacker. He said:
I heard a scream. I just saw a kid that was getting stabbed and I just tried to save her. I saw that he was stabbing a kid, I jumped on him, hold the hand which wasn’t carrying the knife and just put him down on the floor and just hold him and just kicked the knife away from him. And then a couple of more people joined and we just hold him until the police came.
Pintar will appear in court on September 10. He has been remanded in custody. His motive was not terrorism-related and he did not know the woman or the child, who, according to the ABC, were from New South Wales.
