Bottle attacker Ibrahim Albashir, knocked unconscious by Leeds pub doormen after stabbing a woman 30 times, received 25 years

A 34-year-old man attempted to stab a lone woman up to 30 times with a broken bottle outside a pub before security staff knocked him unconscious, court proceedings revealed.

Ibrahim Albashir, 34, told examining doctors he had entered the United Kingdom after being smuggled across from Calais following travel through Libya, Italy and France, court records show.

On the night of March 17, 2024, a woman who is now 32 was walking home from a meal out near a bus stop on Otley Road in Leeds, according to court testimony.

Albashir grabbed the woman from behind opposite the Original Oak pub, witnesses testified.

Witnesses at Leeds Crown Court described the incident that followed as a “frenzied” attack.

The assailant trapped the victim in a hold with one arm from behind, according to testimony.

With his other arm, Albashir went at her with a broken bottle and attempted to stab her as many as 30 times, prosecutors said.

The assault left lacerations across the woman’s neck, chest, head and hands, the court was told.

Her screams during the struggle were described in court testimony as “blood-curdling.”

Security staff from the Original Oak pub heard the screaming and ran outside to intervene, witnesses said.

One bystander at the scene said afterward that he “thought he was trying to kill her.”

The doormen knocked Albashir unconscious to end the attack before police ever arrived at the scene, court testimony established. By the time officers got there, the defendant was already down.

The judge called it “by good fortune alone” that the woman survived the assault with what he described as relatively minor physical injuries, court records show. It was a description she would likely dispute in every way but the medical one.

In her own personal statement, the woman said walking past the spot now “fills me with panic and dread.”

The assault “completely changed the way I live my life,” she told the court.

The judge separately described the woman’s psychological injuries from the assault as “profound and lifelong.”

Albashir has catatonic schizophrenia, according to medical evidence presented during the court proceedings.

The defendant recounted his journey from Sudan to examining doctors, explaining that he had travelled by way of Libya, Italy and France before crossing into the UK, records show.

The judge raised further concerns about the man’s broader pattern of behavior beyond the street assault, noting an earlier unrelated incident on his record.

The court also determined that the defendant’s decision to target a lone woman that night was deliberate.

Two days before the attack took place, police officers had already stopped Albashir in the exact same area, according to court documents.

Officers had found him with his trousers around his ankles in a “trance-like state,” the court heard. He was released with no action taken.

Det Insp Richard James of West Yorkshire Police later put what the doormen prevented in stark terms.

“Without their actions, this could very easily have been a murder investigation,” James said.

Albashir pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted murder, court records show.

The defendant was sentenced to 25 years in prison alongside an indefinite hospital order, the court ruled.

Albashir will be held in a secure hospital for as long as he is considered a danger, and will only be transferred to prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence if he is ever judged recovered enough to leave.