London’s Metropolitan Police said on Monday a 32-year-old man was arrested after an 11-year-old girl was “seriously injured” in a stabbing in Leicester Square in the city centre.
The young victim will require further treatment in hospital but her condition is “not life-threatening”, while her 34-year-old mother also suffered minor injuries, police added.
The police said in a statement the 32-year-old man was arrested at the scene and that officers were not looking for anyone else in connection with the attack.
“An urgent investigation is now ongoing and detectives are working to establish the details around exactly what happened,” Detective Chief Superintendent Christina Jessah said.
“At this stage, we don’t believe the suspect and the victims were known to each other.
“While we continue to work to establish the suspect’s motive, at this stage there is nothing to indicate the attack was terror-related.”
It comes exactly two weeks after the knife attack in Southport, northwest England, in which three girls were killed and eight other children injured, as well as two adults.
The mass stabbing sparked riots across England, after rumours online that the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker. A British-born teenager has been charged with murder and attempted murder.
That case is also not being treated as terrorism.
‘Terrible’
Monday’s stabbing took place in the heart of the British capital, in an area heavily frequented by tourists and shoppers.
A security guard told the Press Association (PA) news agency that he intervened and took a knife from a man attacking the 11-year-old child on the west side of Leicester Square.
The 29-year-old guard at a nearby store, who gave his name as Abdullah, said he heard a scream and then saw someone “stabbing a kid”.
“I jumped on him, held the hand in which he was [carrying] a knife, and just put him down on the floor and just held him and took the knife away from him,” he said.
“Then a couple of more people joined as well, and we just held him until the police came.”
Desmond, 45, told PA that the suspect — described as a “young, white, skinny male wearing a black T-shirt and jeans” — appeared to focus the attack on the girl.
The witness, a street entertainer who performs as Darth Vader on the streets of Leicester Square every day, reported the perpetrator putting her in a headlock and stabbing her.
“It was so terrible, I’ve never seen a thing like that,” he said.
“I saw the woman was screaming with all her strength.”
Jessah called it “a horrific incident” and paid tribute to people “who bravely intervened”.
“They put themselves at risk and showed the best of London in doing so,” she added.