Hospital order for attacker
A MENTALLY-ILL cannabis-user who launched a “frenzied” knife attack on three unsuspecting friends at a flat has been sentenced to a hospital order in a medium secure unit without limit of time.
Prosecutor Philip Standfast read powerful impact statements from Leon Dowbenko’s three victims including 24-yearold Taylor Wells who only survived stab wounds to his heart and lung when an ambulance pulled over and a doctor on board performed open heart massage on him.
In July 2020 Mr Wells had to make a desperate escape through a skylight after Dowbenko, then aged just 18, attacked his friend Jake Oldfield with a kitchen knife and also tried to stab Mr Oldfield’s partner Olivia Pentelow.
Bradford Crown Court heard that Mr Wells fell from the roof of the premises in Sand Beds, Queensbury.
The court heard that Mr Oldfield had been left with a permanent scar to his face and although Dowbenko had tried to stab Miss Pentelow she had mercifully avoided any serious
injury because of the thick dressing gown she was wearing.
In August last year a jury convicted Dowbenko, now 20, of two charges of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily and a further allegation of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.
The jury rejected his defence of insanity, but Judge Jonathan Rose heard expert psychiatric evidence that Dowbenko’s cannabis use could have contributed to his psychosis or possible paranoid schizophrenia.
The judge said he was satisfied that the horrific attack
was brought about by a deterioration in Dowbenko’s mental health and it was necessary to protect the public to make a hospital order under Section 37 of the Mental Health.