HUNT FOR CHEMICAL ATTACKER
» Suspect on run is known sex offender » 12 hurt in assault on mum and 2 girls
A FUGITIVE wanted for a chemical attack on a woman and her two young daughters is a convicted sex offender.
Abdul Ezedi, 35, allegedly hurled a corrosive liquid at the woman, known to him, and her terrified daughters, aged eight and three.
The “targeted” assault hurt nine others, including police officers.
The 31-year-old woman screamed, “I can’t see, I can’t see”, after being doused with an alkaline substance at 7.25pm on Wednesday on a street next to Clapham Common in South West London. The mum and her threeyear-old daughter remain in hospital with what are thought to be “life-changing” injuries. Ezedi was last seen with facial injuries at 8.48pm on Wednesday after buying a bottle of water in a Tesco store on Caledonian Road, North London.
Supt Gabriel Cameron said: “He has significant injuries to the right side of the face. We will catch him. I am wholeheartedly confident we will catch him.” Ezedi, who is said to have been granted asylum after two failed attempts, was convicted of a sexual offence in 2018.
He was handed a suspended sentence at Newcastle crown court for “sexual assault/exposure”, with an unpaid work order which he completed in 2020 when he was discharged from probation supervision.
Witnesses, who saw the woman’s skin strip off her face, said the attack involved a car. A witness said: “There was a little girl banging on the door on the man’s side, the lady was crying, screaming, ‘my eyes, police’.
“He opened the door, took out the baby, banged her against the ground twice, a hard bang.”
An NHS worker said: “It was horrendous. I saw him come out of the driver’s side and take a child from the back of the car.
“He threw her like a rag doll to the ground. Then he did it again. I thought she was dead. She didn’t make any noise. I heard the second child say, ‘I want my mum’. I was so relieved she was alive. “I saw a silver canister that may have been what the corrosive substance was in.”
Bus driver Shannon Christi, 35, revealed how she raced from her flat after hearing screaming to rescue the three-year-old girl. The mum-of-three, who needed hospital treatment after contact with the chemical, said: “I heard screaming. I saw the girl being thrown to the floor. At that point I ran in and grabbed her.
“I heard the mum shouting, ‘I can’t see, I can’t see’. I got it on my
lips and my skin started to tingle. Me and the little girl went in to wash my arms, eyes and face.
“My partner chased the guy halfway down the street but my partner was wearing slippers.”
As well as 11 people taken to hospital, a man in his 50s declined hospital treatment, police said.
Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the attack as “ghastly”. He said: “Fortunately, attacks using acid and chemicals are exceedingly rare.”
A resident, who did not want to be named, claimed the victim lived at Belvedere Hotel Clapham South, which houses homeless people and asylum seekers.
The hotel confirmed guests at the hotel were victims. Police believe he may return to Newcastle and warned the public not to approach him. Ezedi is thought to have made the 280-mile trip from Newcastle to London earlier on Wednesday.
Both Northumbria Police and the British Transport Police are helping the Metropolitan Police.
The white Hyundai hatchback left at the scene belonged to Ezedi, police said.
Three people who came to the aid of the family, two in their 30s and one in her 50s, were all discharged from hospital with minor burns. Five officers were also been treated.
Ezedi was last known to be living in a terraced house in the Arthur’s Hill area of Newcastle. Neighbours said the house had a high turnover of tenants and few remembered him. Mohammad Hussain Nazary, 24, who works in his family’s food shop, said of Ezedi: “I never saw him with a partner or family, he was always on his own.
“He seemed a harmless guy, certainly not someone you’d associate with something like this.” The attack came a day after Bryce Hodgson, 30, was shot dead by police while attempting to break into a house where a woman known to him was present, in Surrey Quays, South East London. The convicted stalker was armed with weapons, including crossbows, a sword, and a knife.