Mother stabbed in street ‘after refusing to give phone to mugger’

Christel Stainfield-Bruce was stabbed in the leg while pushing her son as she made her way home from work

A husband today told how his wife narrowly escaped with her life after being stabbed in the leg when she refused to hand her mobile phone to a mugger.

Nursery worker Christel Stainfield-Bruce, 36, a mother-of-three, was walking home on Friday afternoon when she was knifed in the “unprovoked” attack in Islington, north London.

She was stabbed in the thigh after being confronted by a youth who she said looked to be in his early teens.

The youth approached Mrs Stainfield-Bruce, asking for directions as she pushed her sleeping three-year-old son in a pram.

The attacker then asked for her phone. She refused, and he stabbed her in the thigh.

Christel and her husband Quinn (Supplied)

Mrs Stainfield-Bruce was rushed to a trauma unit and treated on Friday night and was later discharged.

As she recovered at home, Mrs Stainfield-Bruce said: “I think I’m still in quite a lot of shock and I’m waking up for the first time worried about leaving the house.”

“I would like to see him caught and I would like to see him punished, but I want to see some rehabilitation for him.

“I want to know what made him do this.”

Her husband Quinn said knife crime in London had reached “crisis point” and that doctors told them she was lucky the knife did not hit an artery.

He said: “It could have been a murder.

“She was stabbed in the back of her left thigh. An ambulance was called and she was taken to a trauma unit and we were told by doctors it didn’t hit any major arteries.

“If mothers with their children are being stabbed in broad daylight, then what the hell is going on?

“This is crisis point for me, it can’t get much worse than this.

“She turned away and he didn’t even take anything, he didn’t take her phone or her purse but just stabbed her in the back of her left thigh.”

Police said they were called at 4.56pm on Friday to reports of a stabbing.

They are seeking a suspect described as being between 14 and 16 years old who fled towards the Tollington and Holloway road area.

No arrests have been made.

The suspect is described as black male, 5ft 3ins, of large build and was wearing dark coloured clothing, including a jacket and a ‘trucker’ style cap at the time of the attack.

*story by the Evening Standard