Transgender runner who nearly killed boss in knife frenzy over race ban gets 18 years
A TRANSGENDER fell-running champion launched a frenzied knife attack on an athletics chief following a dispute over her eligibility to compete as a woman.
Oxford graduate Lauren Jeska, 42, stabbed Ralph Knibbs in the head and neck ‘as though she was skewering meat’, a court heard yesterday.
Jeska attacked the 52-year-old UK Athletics worker with two kitchen knives – measuring 12in and 13in – in his office at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium.
She drove three hours from her home in Machynlleth, Mid Wales, to carry out the attack in March last year.
In CCTV footage shown to Birmingham Crown Court, Jeska was seen calmly taking the knives out of her rucksack at the UK Athletics reception, while the receptionist went to inform Mr Knibbs the athlete wanted to see him.
Jeska then followed the woman into the office and strolled past staff at their desks before attacking Mr Knibbs.
Richard Atkins QC, prosecuting, said: ‘She caught him by surprise and knocked him off balance.
‘As she lunged at him, muttering something under her breath, she stabbed him around the head and neck in a downward motion.
‘Blood began pumping out of his neck before other people in the office who heard shouting came to Mr Knibbs’ assistance.’
Jeska, originally from Lancaster, was pinned to a wall by two of her victim’s colleagues, Timothy Begley and Kevan Taylor, who suffered minor wounds. A third man took the knives from her.
Another official was then said to have saved Mr Knibbs’ life by stemming the blood from his 2cm neck wound.
But the former rugby player suffered a stroke and has reduced feeling, vision and strength in his left side.
Jeska – English women’s fell-running champion in 2010, 2011 and 2012 – first met her victim only the week before, when he went to her home. The human resources manager, who was UK Athletics’ point of contact for gender issues, initially thought the meeting was going well, but Jeska became ‘agitated and upset’ and complained about being stopped from competing before storming out.
Jailing her for 18 years, judge Simon Drew QC said the university research assistant had ‘planned and executed the attack with chilling precision’. Describing the case as ‘deeply disturbing and complex’, he ruled she posed a ‘significant risk’ to the public.
Mr Atkins said Jeska – born Michael Jameson before transitioning in 2000 – had failed to give UK Athletics blood samples for testing levels of male hormone testosterone. She was told that, while she could still compete domestically, she would not be able to run on the international stage.
Julie Warburton, defending, said questions had first been raised over Jeska’s eligibility to compete as a woman in 2012, when she had considered entering a race abroad.
The issue came up again in June 2015, when she was warned her records would be erased if she refused to submit to blood tests.
The court heard Jeska’s mental health worsened after the meeting, and she was erased from race records that September. Miss Warburton said: ‘She felt as though her transgender status was going to be aired publicly in order to explain why the results had been removed.’ Her parents Graham and Pauline Jameson believe Jeska was tipped over the edge as she was ‘threatened with the prospect of seeing
‘Blood pumping out of his neck’
all that she had achieved in running being taken away from her’.
They said that in October 2015 she went to a hospital A&E unit to ask for psychiatric help, but was turned away without any treatment.
Then three months later she told her GP she was ‘finding it increasingly difficult to resist fantasies about killing someone’, but the doctor failed to refer her for help.
Her father, 74, said the attack was ‘so out of character that we can only understand it as resulting from her normal balance of mind being severely disrupted’.
Mr Knibbs, who said he felt ‘lucky to be alive’, played rugby for England at under-23 level. He turned down the chance to go on tour to South Africa in 1984 because he opposed apartheid. Jeska admitted attempted murder, two counts of carrying a knife and two counts of assault.