Youth, 15, stabbed jogger while 'tagged'

Published on Friday 6 August 2004 01:42

A 15-YEAR-OLD who stabbed a jogger in a park was electronically tagged at the time, it was revealed yesterday.

He was fitted with the tag after being released from a young offenders’ institution six weeks before the attack.

He had been serving a sentence for robbery and attempted robbery.

Despite being fitted with the tag he was able to go to Clissold Park in north London and stab Monica Watts, a 39-year-old teacher, on 5 December last year. The tag played no part in his eventually being caught.

Ms Watts was saved after being treated by a doctor who was in the park with her baby.

Opponents of the system for monitoring offenders will highlight the case as showing that tagging does not stop criminals committing further crimes and will argue that it proves offenders should serve more of their sentences in jail.

The teenager was arrested ten days after the attack because he was the local "public enemy number one" - but was then released.

A month later he was arrested for a second time and charged after he confided details of the attack which were not public knowledge to a friend.

By that time he was back in Feltham young offenders’ institution in Middlesex on remand after being arrested for a mobile-phone robbery.

Despite being only 15 and at liberty at the time of the attack the boy already had a long police record. His nickname was "Slasher" because he was known to carry knives and he had 17 convictions, police sources said, including one for an attack on his own mother.

He was fitted with the tag on 21 October under an order made by a juvenile court following his release from Feltham. He was also ordered to have supervised sessions with a Youth Offending Team.

An hour before the attack he was being supervised in a library not far from the park, police sources said.

A supervisor noticed he was looking at a police website and was scrolling through murder rates before shouting: "Yes!"

The supervisor asked him: "What do you mean by that?", and the youth replied: "Because Hackney are tops for murder."

He said he had been in Feltham where some boys from Haringey said their borough of London had more murders. He said: "Those boys from Haringey think they’re tops - now we are."

Police believe he then followed a woman in the park before selecting his victim.

Before he was arrested for the second time the teenager got rid of the rucksack and some clothes he had with him at the time of the attack, police sources said.

However, some time before the attack police had taken video footage inside his flat while investigating him over drug allegations. On the film was a knife which would fit as the weapon used.

The youth is due to be sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court on 10 September. He had been convicted of the attack at the Old Bailey in April, but a court order banned reporting until yesterday.