Jail for Halifax man who stabbed boy, 17, in random attack

Mohammed Ikram Iqbal, 34, was sentenced to more than four years in prison

A schizophrenic man who stabbed a teenager at random has been sentenced to four years and three months in jail.

Mohammed Ikram Iqbal, 34, attacked the 17-year-old boy in Halifax in November 2022, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Iqbal's pleas of guilty to wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm and possession of a knife were accepted by the prosecution.

On Monday, Iqbal, of Parkinson Lane, Halifax, was also given an extended licence period of four years.

'Unprovoked attack'

The court heard Iqbal had a history of mental illness and before he attacked the teenager on 24 November 2022, he had called a mental health nurse and threatened he was going to stab someone.

Judge Jonathan Rose said Iqbal, who had no previous convictions, had then gone on to carry out the "random and entirely unprovoked attack" on the teen.

Judge Rose told the court Iqbal had been trying to sleep at his home after he had drunk a substantial part of a bottle of whisky between 08:00 GMT and 09:00 GMT.

After being disturbed by the noise of moped riders outside, Iqbal had made a conscious decision to go outside and stab someone.

Iqbal was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court on Monday

The court heard that after finding the moped riders had gone, he instead vented his frustration on the next person he saw. He ran towards the 17-year-old and stabbed at him with a blade protruding from a cigarette lighter.

As a result, the teenager suffered a stab wound to his back, which left a permanent scar.

The teenager later described the attack as the scariest situation of his life, Bradford Crown Court was told.

Iqbal was later arrested at his home and told officers he had "woken up on the wrong side of the bed" and felt he had to carry out a random attack.

Police originally charged him with attempted murder, but last June his guilty pleas to the other charges were accepted by the prosecution.

'Significant damage'

A psychiatrist had concluded Iqbal's schizophrenia was not the cause of the attack and at the time he had not been taking his medication and was abusing alcohol and cannabis, the court heard.

Barrister Jeremy Barton, mitigating, said Iqbal had since expressed remorse for his offending and had exhibited some insight into his own mental health issues.

"The phone call to the mental health nurse is perhaps the strongest evidence that at the time he realised he was going to do something criminal, something bad," Mr Barton said.

Sentencing Iqbal, Judge Rose said his victim had no warning of what was coming and the defendant had chased after him.

He added that while the teenager's impact statement showed the physical harm he suffered was "thankfully, and entirely fortuitously, not the most serious", the psychological damage was "extremely significant".