Four Women Stabbed In Unprovoked Attack In West London

We published an article this morning about International Safe Cities For Women Day (today) and the heroic campaigners tackling violence and sexual harassment aimed at women on the streets. The BBC has since reported that four women were stabbed at 10.30 this morning in a car park near a Sainsbury’s branch in Hampton, Richmond. The update on the BBC says that one woman is critically ill, and the other three are seriously injured after a man in his 60s stabbed them in the chest, legs and back. It was an entirely unprovoked, random attack. “He only went for the women,” an unidentified witness told the BBC. The attack happened outside a primary school, where there had been children running around “ten or 20 minutes earlier," the witness said. The man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. In a new research project interviewing 2,500 women, Action Aid found that 75% of British respondents had experienced some form of violence or harassment in cities. And while 36% of women in UK cities outside the capital feel at risk of harassment on public transport, this rises to 51% on London transport.