London’s Leicester Square stabbing suspect charged with attempted murder

Audio By Carbonatix

LONDON (Reuters) -A 32-year-old man appeared in court on Tuesday charged with the attempted murder of a young girl in London’s Leicester Square in what prosecutors described as a “random attack”.

Ioan Pintaru was also charged with the possession of a bladed article after the 11-year-old girl was stabbed eight times on Monday afternoon in Leicester Square, a tourist hotspot in central London home to shops and theatres.

London’s Metropolitan Police said the 11-year-old girl was seriously injured though her injuries are not life-threatening.

While it was initially believed the girl’s mother, 34, was also hurt, police said that blood from her daughter’s injuries had been mistaken for injuries of her own.

Pintaru appeared at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court wearing a grey tracksuit and spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth.

Prosecutor David Burns said the girl and her mother, who were tourists, were in the Leicester Square area just before the incident, which he said was a “random attack on a child”.

“The defendant has approached the 11-year-old girl, placed her into a headlock and he has then stabbed her eight times to the body,” Burns said.

Pintaru was not asked to enter any pleas and was remanded in custody ahead of his next court hearing at the Old Bailey on Sept. 10.

(Reporting by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru and Sam Tobin in London; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Sachin Ravikumar)