This is the moment a man suspected of stabbing an Army officer multiple times in broad daylight is arrested by police just a few minutes from the scene of the attack.
The unnamed soldier in his 40s was set upon in what appeared to have been an unprovoked attack by an assailant wielding two kitchen knives 200 yards from Brompton Barracks in Gillingham shortly before 6pm on Tuesday.
He is thought to have been stabbed as many as 12 times over the course of around 20 seconds, and was attacked again as he staggered back to his house. Locals described hearing ‘blood-curdling screams’ during the savage assault.
Ring doorbell footage from a local resident captures a woman screaming hysterically: ‘What the f*** are you doing?’, ‘F****** hell’ and ‘Somebody call 999’.
Eyewitnesses say the alleged attacker, wearing a ski mask and NASA bomber jacket, fled on a red moped. Half an hour later, locals on Mooring Road described seeing a man being arrested by police who leapt from an unmarked vehicle to handcuff him.
The attack is not being treated as an act of terror, with police instead saying they are ‘exploring the possibility it may be mental health-related’.
Police say they arrested a 24-year-old local man on suspicion of attempted murder, seizing a ‘number of knives’. The officer was airlifted to hospital, where he remains in a serious but stable condition.
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Witnesses say the soldier had suffered grievous facial injuries as the assailant then rode off on the moped.
Eyewitnesses described how a police officer stepped out of an unmarked car on Mooring Road in Rochester – 10 minutes from the scene of the attack – to arrest the alleged attacker.
One woman in the quiet cul-de-sac said she saw an officer leave an unmarked police car and arrest the suspect last night.
She said: ‘Around ten past six we saw an unmarked police car. They handcuffed the guy on the moped. We couldn’t see the guy because a van was parked in the way.
‘They had already got him in handcuffs.’
Another man who was working on scaffolding nearby said: ‘I heard some voices and saw an unmarked police car. The police obviously arrested him.’
A man named Russell, who lives in the cul-de-sac, said he was awoken by the sound of a recovery truck taking the suspect’s moped at around 2am last night.
‘Armed police and everything came down,’ he said.
‘About two in the morning I got woken up by the truck coming to get the bike. It’s normally really quiet around here. It’s similar to Lee Rigby… and that worries me.’
One resident, who wished not to be named, said he first saw an unmarked police car at around 6.10pm and then three or four police cars turned up and armed police.
‘He was staying there with (police). It was very calm, no struggling and must have been 20 minutes later took him to a car at the end of the green.’
Police were seen examining a moped and bike helmet in Mooring Road, Rochester – 10 minutes’ drive from the scene of the attack.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was ‘shocked and appalled’ by the attack.
He later told PMQs: ‘I know the whole House will be shocked by the news that a soldier has been attacked in Kent.
‘Our thoughts are with him, his family and our armed forces who serve to keep us safe. We wish him a swift recovery.’
Leader of the opposition Rishi Sunak added: ‘Can I join with the Prime Minister in expressing my shock at an attack on a British soldier…our thoughts are with him and his family, as we wish him a speedy recovery.’
Home secretary Yvette Cooper said she was receiving updates from Kent Police, which said this morning that a man remains in custody.
Chief of General Staff, General Sir Roly Walker, said he is ‘deeply saddened’ by the ‘horrific’ and ‘unprovoked’ assault while shadow home secretary James Cleverly expressed his gratitude to police for their ‘swift action (in) arresting the suspect’.
Sir Roly confirmed the man was an officer in the Army, adding: ‘My thoughts and best wishes are with him and his family. They have the full support of the chain of command as they recover from this horrendous incident.’
Police have arrested a 24-year-old man, described as a ‘local’, on suspicion of attempted murder. Ministry of Defence sources say it is too soon to deduce any motivating factors behind the attack.
Security sources have said terrorism has been downplayed as a reason – adding that electronic devices belonging to the suspect had yet to be examined.
However, the attack has echoes of the 2013 murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby, who was stabbed to death by two Islamist jihadi terrorists near his barracks in south London.
Acting Chief Superintendent Richard Woolley of Kent Police said: ‘This was an upsetting incident for all concerned and our best wishes go to the victim, his family and those who witnessed the incident.
‘Residents will experience an increased police presence in the Gillingham area and I would like to reassure everyone that officers responded quickly to take a man into custody and we do not currently believe anyone else was involved.
‘The motivation for the attack is currently unknown and forms part of our ongoing enquiries, although we are exploring the possibility that it may be mental health-related. We are also investigating any possible links between the location and the suspect.
‘There is no further information at this time to suggest there are any wider threats to the local community including members of the armed forces.’
Witnesses to the Gillingham attack say the knifeman held up one of the bloodied weapons and licked it in front of terrified locals who had rushed out of their homes to help the serviceman.
Horrified onlookers had been alerted to the attack after hearing screams on Sally Port Gardens, a quiet residential street that is believed to be home to some military families.
Neighbour Alex Reynolds, 38, who works as a commodities analyst, said: ‘We had my father in the house and we heard the screaming.
‘At first, we thought it was a scuffle in the street. But you could then hear the piercing shrieks of the voices and you realise that it was something much more.
‘Seconds later I walked out into the road and I can see 10 people around a body which wasn’t moving.
‘The victim was wearing military uniform as many people around here do.’ He later added the uniform was ‘cream camouflage’ in colour.
It was Mr Reynold’s Ring doorbell that captured the screams of a woman yelling during the attack.
He added: ‘I spoke to someone who worked with him and he said he always walked out at that time of the night.
‘His wife was running around screaming asking for help. She seemed in good health considering the situation – she seemed fit enough to ask people for help.
‘She was directing traffic onto the pavement to get to her husband.’
A woman who lives nearby told today how she saw the ‘dead-eyed’ attacker riding slowly away moments after stabbing a soldier.
The shaken eye-witness, who declined to be named, said: ‘There was a lot of car horns and men shouting. At first I thought there’d been some sort of accident or road-rage incident.
‘But then I heard a woman screaming ‘no, no, no, stop’. That’s when I knew something more serious had happened.
‘I looked over to where the commotion was and I saw the woman running somewhere. Shortly afterwards a man rode down the road slowly past me on a motorbike. He had a crash helmet on but I could see his face.
‘He had a calm, glazed, dead-behind-the eyes look. He wasn’t sweating, didn’t look worried and wasn’t rushing, it seemed to me.’
‘Another woman who saw what happened called the police and I heard her saying, ‘He’s just stabbed a man and his riding off, you need to get here straight away.’
‘I saw the wife of the victim again and she was asking the doctors on the corner for first aid equipment. She told them her husband had just been stabbed.
‘A military patrol vehicle was on the scene almost immediately and police and ambulance were here a moment of two later.
‘This has shocked us all, It’s horrible and frightening to think something like this could happen in the area.’
A witness earlier told KentOnline: ‘The attacker was going for him and stabbed him about 12 times.
‘This was with two kitchen knives, about nine to 10 inches long, and there were about seven of us there who witnessed it.’
Another said the victim had ‘wounds all over his body’, claiming: ‘Blood was everywhere as I tried to apply pressure to his wounds until the police arrived.
‘The guy was looking for a soldier to attack. When the guy’s wife came out and started trying to pull the guy off he didn’t even try to hurt her. He only had his sights set on hurting a British soldier,’ he added to The Sun.
Jessica Turner, a 53-year-old primary school teacher, said Brompton Barracks had been put into lockdown. Unverified social media footage has been shared of a public address announcement ordering soldiers to stay indoors.
The PA news agency reports that security was tightened up at Brompton Barracks in the immediate aftermath of the attack but that it has since returned to normal levels.
Ms Turner told the Telegraph her neighbour, a serviceman, had warned her husband to lock their doors and stay inside, adding: ‘It’s terrible, you have young families around.
‘It looked like he was attacked just outside his home. What chance would he have had?’
A woman who lives near the scene of an attack on a soldier in Kent said she heard the victim’s wife ask for medical assistance.
The witness, who lives near a medical centre nearby, said she heard a woman say: ‘My husband has been stabbed – is there a first aider?’
She said she initially thought the commotion was to do with a traffic incident before she heard a woman ‘who was hysterical’ screaming: ‘No!’
She said she also saw a man driving away on a motorbike.
British Army personnel living near the scene of the attack said the victim is a ‘very nice guy’.
A man living just down the road, who gave his rank as sergeant, described the attacked soldier as ‘friendly’.
He said: ‘He’s a very nice guy, very friendly, but I don’t work closely with him. I’m not too sure if he has any children.’
A local man walking past the crime scene said residents now feel ‘unsafe’ in Gillingham.
Another local added: ‘It’s a shame. You don’t expect anything like this around here.’
The incident, 200 yards from the Royal School of Military Engineering, has shaken local residents despite the constant military presence in the area.
Resident Lauren Alsey said it was ‘gutting’ about the attack on the army officer which happened when it was ‘still light’.
Ms Alsey, 40, said: ‘moving here, we are not a military background, but this is MOD land. We get three security patrols a day, even Christmas Day.’
One woman living near the scene said she was sitting down to dinner with her family when they heard a ‘huge scream’.
As they got to the window, she saw the attacker giving a final stab wound to a victim who was on the floor. She could not see if the person was wearing a military uniform.
‘It’s very, very scary’, she said.
The town of Gillingham sits in the borough of Medway in Kent and its ties with the Royal Engineers are well-known.
Cllr Vince Maple, leader of Medway Council, said: ‘Our thoughts are with the individual involved and his family at this time. Our Armed Forces personnel and their families are a valued part of our Medway community.
‘It is good to see increased patrols at this time by Kent Police for community reassurance. I would encourage anyone who has information that may assist the police with their enquiries to please come forward.’
An air ambulance was seen landing in Great Lines Heritage Park, which lies next to the scene of the incident.
Brompton Barracks is the home of the Royal School of Military Engineering Regiment. Many of its soldiers live adjacent to the base in army families accommodation.
Soldiers at the Army base were understood to have been forbidden from leaving until police ensured there was no further threat to personnel.
In a statement released last night following the incident in Gillingham an Army spokesperson said: ‘We’re very sorry to confirm that a soldier has sustained serious injuries in an attack in Chatham, Kent.
‘Our thoughts are with the soldier and their family and we request that their privacy is respected at this difficult time.
‘We will continue to work closely with Kent Police to understand what happened and support the investigation. Anyone who witnessed the attack or who has any relevant information should contact Kent Police.’
Earlier a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: ‘We are aware of an emerging incident in the Chatham area which may have involved a soldier.
‘As the circumstances are currently under investigation by Kent Police, we cannot comment further.’
Kent Police said this morning: ‘A man remains in custody today following a serious assault on a soldier in Gillingham.
‘There is an ongoing police presence in the town following the incident in Sally Port Gardens at around 5.55pm on Tuesday 23 July 2024.
‘Kent Police was called to reports a soldier in uniform, a man in his 40s, had suffered injuries consistent with stab wounds.
‘He was taken to a hospital for treatment and his condition is currently described as serious but stable.
‘The suspect, a 24-year-old local man, is reported to have left the scene on a motorcycle and at approximately 6.30pm was located and arrested in Mooring Road, Rochester.
‘Cordons have been set up at both the scene of the incident and the scene of the arrest, and a number of knives have been seized.’
The attack brings back memories of the horrific murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby who was brutally hacked to death by two Islamic terrorists May 2013.
The father-of-one had been wearing a ‘Help for Heroes’ hoodie while walking in Woolwich off-duty when he was attacked by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.
The 25-year-old was first run over by a car at up to 40mph before Adebolajo and Adebowale slashed at him with knifes and a cleaver and attempted to behead him.
The immediate aftermath of the vile attack was caught on camera by bystanders, with Rigby’s attackers – both of whom had converted to Islam from Christianity -proudly claiming they were getting revenge for Muslims killed by the British Army.
The pair were subdued by armed police after they attempted to charge at officers with weapons.
Adebolajo would later be given a whole-life tariff for the murder while Adebowale would be given a minimum term of 45 years.