Mental health detention for man who stabbed mum in neck (From Croydon Guardian)

Mental health detention for man who stabbed mum in neck

10:24am Friday 11th May 2007

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A Croydon man who stabbed his ex-girlfriend in the neck after she dumped him has been detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act.

The Old Bailey was told Mark Boyce, 37, stabbed Stephanotis Reid, 29, in the neck while she was putting her two-year-old daughter in a child car seat outside her sister's Mitcham home on January 23.

The toddler was left soaked in her mum's blood as Boyce repeatedly stabbed Ms Reid.

Boyce had been charged with attempted murder but pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of wounding.

The court was told Boyce, from Heathfield Drive, Croydon, had been following the woman since she ended their relationship earlier that day.

Boyce came to the UK from Trinidad as a student in 2004 but no longer had leave to remain in the country when he knifed Ms Reid.

Ms Reid had allowed Boyce to live with her and they soon struck up a relationship but he became possessive and suffocating.

She had tried to end the affair several times before she finally told Boyce it was over.

On January 23 Ms Reid parked her car near Tooting Bec, south London, and found Boyce waiting when she returned.

He followed her to her sister's house near Mitcham town centre and demanded to be let in.

Ms Reid allowed him in because her sister did not want Boyce to cause a disturbance in the street.

When she picked up her two-year-old daughter and started putting her in the car to go home Boyce followed her into the street and attacked her from behind.

Speaking outside court Detective Sergeant Brian Lucas said: "She was wearing a scarf and a leather jacket which saved her life.

"She bled all over her daughter who was very traumatised."

Boyce, still holding the bloody kitchen knife, fled to a barber shop in Tooting where he was later arrested.

The victim's sister and two children, boys aged 11 and 13, also witnessed the attack.

Boyce was ordered to be indefinitely detained in a secure mental health facility.

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