RAMFUL:KNIFE NUT WHO HACKED THREE-YEAR-OLD GIRL’S THROAT LOCKED AWAY
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A mentally disturbed NHS worker who hacked a three-year-old girl’s throat with a kitchen knife was locked away in a psychiatric hospital indefinitely today (fri).
Dewanand Ramful, 40, narrowly missed severing the youngster’s jugular vein as he stuck the weapon in her neck three times and then turned the knife on himself.
Ramful had already attacked the child’s mother before stabbing the girl, who fled to a kitchen cupboard to escape the onslaught.
He was convicted of attempted murder last December at the Old Bailey and admitted two counts of wounding with intent.
Judge Christopher Moss QC made Ramful the subject of a hospital order under the Mental Health Act today ‘without limit of time’ because he is still a danger to the public.
Judge Moss said: ‘What must have gone through the mind of your (young victim) and how terrified must she have been as she cowered in that kitchen cupboard.
‘You carry a substantial burden knowing what you did that day.
‘I am quite satisfied you were suffering from a mental illness.’
Ramful will be held at the Fairfield Hospital, East Grinstead, west Sussex, until doctors deem he is no longer a risk to the public.
The court heard the child would have died if the blade had penetrated fractionally deeper in the attack at the house in Chessington, Surrey, on June 25 last year.
The girl was also knifed twice in the chest during the incident.
Ramful then stabbed himself in the abdomen following the attacks but his own injuries were not serious.
Phillip Bennetts, prosecuting, told how Ramful had attacked the 40-year-old woman using up to five kitchen knives.
‘He got angry, got a knife out of the kitchen drawer and started stabbing at her,’ Mr Bennetts said.
‘She fortunately managed to run from the house and the next door neighbour opened the door to her.’
After the woman escaped Ramful turned the blade on the child.
‘He then attempted to kill her, cutting her throat three times with a knife and stabbing her twice to the chest,’ Mr Bennetts said.
Ramful told detectives he stopped the attack because the girl was screaming and she was bleeding heavily.
Officers who entered the house restrained Ramful and the girl was taken to hospital.
Mr Bennetts said: ‘They saw the defendant and they saw the girl screaming and she was bleeding from her throat.
‘One cut was through the muscle close to the jugular vein and carotid artery.
‘A fraction more laterally and the child in the doctors opinion would have died.’
The woman who was ‘hysterical and crying’ was taken to hospital where doctors found a 3cm cut on her chest that needed stitches.
Ramful admitted knifing the woman and girl – who cannot be named for legal reasons – but denied trying to murder the youngster.
Ramful, of Chessington, Surrey, admitted two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and was convicted of attempted murder of the child.
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