Stabbing attack off icer feared he would ‘not be going home’
A POLICE officer feared he would not be ‘going home’ after being stabbed while on duty.
Constable Kenneth MacKenzie and his colleague Laura Sayer were both injured during a knife attack in June.
They had been called to a house in Greenock, Renfrewshire, to assist a mental health nurse and another medic as they carried out an assessment on William Taylor.
But Taylor stabbed PC MacKenzie several times in the neck and body after he tried to disarm him.
He then managed to corner PC Sayer and stabbed her in the neck and arm, before turning again on PC MacKenzie, who was going to her aid. The courage shown by the two officers was revealed at a bravery awards ceremony held by the Scottish Police Federation last week. PC MacKenzie told STV how Taylor, who had been told he was being sectioned under the Mental Health Act, was ‘frantically stabbing at me and I remember the thought going through my head was, “I’m not going home tonight”.
‘I was on my back on the worktop and he was frantically stabbing at my body armour, at my neck, at my head.
‘I couldn’t get any equipment out at that time to defend myself. I was using my hands to push the knife away and my hands were all cut from the knife. It was fear, panic, dread.’
PC Sayer, who had started with Police Scotland 12 weeks before the attack on June 1, said: ‘He managed to back me up against a wall and was stabbing at my chest.
‘It’s been extremely tough... but we’re both still here, and the mental health nurse and the doctor are still alive.’