Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
If this Taser doesn’t work, this might be it
‘Britain’s hardest cop’ Maniac convicted but on machete attack terror cleared of bid to murder
A POLICE officer has told how he is lucky to be alive after he desperately fought off a thug who attacked him with a machete.
PC Stuart Outten suffered deep gashes to the head, broken fingers and an injured arm in the vicious roadside assault by Muhammad Rodwan.
But the brave 29-year-old managed to Taser the yob twice and bring the horror to an end.
Rodwan, 56, was yesterday convicted of wounding the officer with the 2ft long blade, but cleared of attempted murder and possession of an offensive weapon.
Speaking of the attack,
PC Outten – dubbed
Britain’s hardest cop – said: “On that night I was just doing my job, doing what I’m trained to do, but more importantly making sure I didn’t die, because that was a distinct possibility had the attack carried on.
“Once he’s started hitting me in the head with the machete, then I realised it was escalating quickly and I was having to now fight for my life.
“I recall specifically as I was falling to the floor, having fired the first shot and aiming for the second [thinking] that if this doesn’t work, this might be it.
“But luckily the Taser worked. It did its job. He fell incapacitated next to me and I was able to use it to keep him on the floor and to keep myself alive.”
Dismissing his “hardest cop” tag, PC Outten added: “Luckily
I have the size and build that
I can take a couple of machete blows to the head, apparently, and act afterwards.”
The officer was attacked in Leyton, East London, on August 7 last year after he stopped Rodwan in his van for having no insurance.
A police bodycam captured the horrific moment.
Rodwan, who claimed he slept in his van around the East End, was found guilty of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
Jurors at his Old Bailey trial were not told he had attacked two men with a machete in his flat in 1996.
Then known as Rodney Reid, he was jailed for nine years for that assault.
Sources said he also got three years in 1983 for rape and in 2008 he received a caution for having cannabis. But trial judge Mrs Justice Carr ruled his violent past inadmissible.
PC Outten said of Rodwan: “Personal feelings for him? I don’t have any. There’s no hatred. He did what he did, he’s paying the price.
“I don’t feel the attack was personal. He was attacking an officer in uniform and I responded.” Rodwan, who claimed he had the machete in his van for gardening work, will be sentenced today. After yesterday’s verdict, Waltham Forest and Newham commander Det Chief Supt Richard Tucker said of PC Outten: “He did what I would hope the vast majority of police officers would do.
“He had the training, he put that into action, notwithstanding he was very, very lucky that day and I’m very proud of Stuart. He did an amazing job.” Figures show 5,900 police officers and staff were attacked between January and December last year, compared with 5,700 between November 2018 and last October.