Man ‘stabbed for car’ next to Kew Gardens
A DRIVER was stabbed ‘inches from his heart’ in what witnesses described as an attempted carjacking near Kew Gardens yesterday.
Cafe worker Gino Gashi said the victim, a regular customer he knows as Eric, staggered to the cafe after the incident close to the world-famous botanical gardens in west London, just before 8am.
Residents described seeing an ‘enormous’ kitchen knife on the road before police took a vehicle away on a low-loader.
It is thought the victim, a man in his 50s, had been walking back to his car after stopping to buy a coffee when he was stabbed. He was said to have screamed ‘help – call an ambulance’ after collapsing on the pavement outside the cafe.
Last night he was in a stable condition in hospital and police said his injuries were not thought to be life-threatening.
Mr Gashi, from Caffe Torelli, told MailOnline: ‘Seeing someone who has been stabbed is shocking. He was stabbed inches from his heart. It was a deep wound.’
The cafe’s manager, who gave his name as Marco, added: ‘It was very shocking for me to see him lying on the floor when I had been talking to him about football just 30 seconds before.’
Mr Gashi said he and other cafe blood workers from the helped man’s to wounds stem the as he lay on the pavement.
‘It was very terrible – he is lucky to be alive,’ Mr Gashi said. ‘ I think they were trying to take his car. We saw the car door open.’
A nearby shopkeeper added: ‘The police took a car away. It doesn’t seem obvious for something like this to happen at eight in the morning in Kew Gardens. It just looks like an opportunist who has gone for the car.’
A resident told local news website MyLondon that there was a ‘kitchen knife in the middle of the road and blood’.
Another witness tweeted: ‘Horrific stabbing this morning outside Torellis – thoughts with the victim. Enormous knife. Not what you expect in Kew on a sleepy Sunday morning.’
Cafe manager Marco said he parked his car in the same location every morning, adding: ‘It could easily happen to me and it’s terrifying for everyone.
‘People need to wake up, we need more trained police. It’s not surprising that this happens when you don’t see any police around. Stuff like this has been happening in Kew all the time in the last seven or eight months.’
He added that the victim’s son had phoned him to say that he would be fine but that he was ‘lucky to be alive’.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ‘No arrests were made and inquiries continue.’