Jury finds man attempted to murder Gwent Police sergeant

Mohammed Ibrahim is on trial at Swansea Crown Court accused of attempted murder against Gwent Police sergeant Carl Blanks.

Ibrahim also faced charges of attempting to wound a second police sergeant with the intent to do grievous bodily harm, and arson with the intent to endanger life, all dating back to an incident on St Vincent Lane in Newport on April 23 last year.

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The defendant is unfit to stand trial so the jury was asked to decide not his guilt or innocence but whether he committed the alleged acts.

The court heard how Sgt Blanks was one of the officers who responded to a call to St Vincent Lane at around 5.30am on April 23, 2020, after reports of a man “banging on his neighbour’s door” in a multiple occupancy house.

The man had locked himself in his room and was refusing to speak to the officers, who reported hearing a noises behind the door.

Officers outside the address on St Vincent Lane in Newport in April 2020. Picture: Huw Evans Agency.

Sgt Blanks ordered the door was forced open, and PC Ryan Morton kicked the door open with “three or four” kicks.

Sgt Blanks was the first officer in the room.

“I heard him make a groan noise and he said something like ‘I’ve been stabbed’,” PC Morton told the court.

After Sgt Blanks was stabbed, Gwent Police’s area support unit arrived.

Sergeant Leighton Healan said the building was already on fire when he arrived and went upstairs to the room in question.

“I was met by a male person who appeared in the doorway,” he said. “It was the defendant in this case.

“I could see he was holding a knife – what I thought was a kitchen knife. The blade was about four or five inches.

“I was probably about two metres from him.”

St Vincent Lane was cordoned off in Newport in April 2020. Picture: Huw Evans Agency.

Sgt Healan told the court he pointed his Taser at the man and ordered him to drop the knife. The man did not, and Sgt Healan discharged his Taser.

The man fell straight back in to the room, but Sgt Healan was unable to find him due to his dark clothing and the room had filled with smoke.

“I saw the knife come out of the smoke almost between my legs,” he said. “It came out of nowhere through the smoke.

“The point of the knife was almost towards my waistband.”

Sgt Healan said he then retreated out onto the stairs, and saw the defendant smash a window and escape onto the roof outside.

He and “three or four” other officers followed through the window on the floor below. Another officer discharged a Taser and Sgt Healan said he used his baton, striking the man “up to 10 times” to subdue him so he could be arrested.

A statement from the forensics team was submitted as evidence, which stated they had found Sgt Blanks’ blood on the blade of a knife, which also had Ibrahim’s DNA on its handle, although it was not possible to determine when this was from.

Dr Gethin Williams, a consultant surgeon at the Royal Gwent Hospital, told the jury that Sgt Blanks “almost died” but for the medical care he received from other officers, who cleaned his wound and wrapped it in cling film, and an emergency laparotomy operation.

Describing Sgt Blanks’ injuries, Dr Williams said there was a “six centimetre oblique laceration in his abdomen.”

He added the knife had “punctured the small bowel” and a part of his intestine was “protruding out of the laceration.”

The jury found by a majority verdict that Ibrahim did attempt to murder Sgt Blanks. The jury also concluded, unanimously, that he attempted to wound Sgt Healan with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The jury must now decide whether Ibrahim committed arson with the intent to endanger life.

The trial continues.