A TEENAGER known as “Slasher” who stabbed a teacher while she jogged in a park and knifed a former friend outside his flat was jailed for life yesterday.
Elias Cecchetti, 16, hid under a tree awaiting a victim before stabbing Monica Watts in the stomach with a large knife. Her life was saved by a doctor on maternity leave, who was walking her children in Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, North London.
Cecchetti was described by police as calculating and callous and having a disturbing disregard for others. Detective Chief Inspector Ron Scott, who led the investigation into the stabbing of Miss Watts, said that Cecchetti was “without doubt” the most dangerous juvenile he had encountered in 28 years of service.
Judge Warwick McKinnon at Maidstone Crown Court sentenced Cecchetti to life for wounding Miss Watts with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
She had noticed someone standing motionless under a willow tree, while jogging last December. As she ran past him, Cecchetti, who was aged 15 and electronically tagged as part of a previous sentence for assault and battery, said: “Hello jogging princess. I will get you on your next lap.”
Advertisement
The court was told that the 39-year-old primary school teacher continued running, but then decided to confront him. As she approached, she felt him punch her, but the blow turned out to be the upward thrust of a large knife.
Sally O’Neill, QC, for the prosecution, said: “She struggled with him, saying he could not just attack people in parks.”
The teenager grabbed Miss Watts and tried to kick her several times in the stomach. When she managed to run off, he shouted: “I am going to get you next time.”
Miss Watts ran towards Anne Soloman, an off-duty doctor who had a baby strapped to her chest and another in a buggy. Ms O’Neill said: “She did everything in her power to help, she called an ambulance and kept pressure on the wound. Her injuries were certainly serious and. . . were initially described as life-threatening.”
Cecchetti, who revelled in his nickname “Slasher”, boasted about the attack the next day, asking a friend to take his jacket and a rucksack containing the knife. He told the friend that Miss Watts had started to beat him and that he “did what I had to do — stab her”.
Advertisement
Miss Watts told a trial in April at the Old Bailey: “I remember clutching my side trying to hold the blood in. I was embarrassed, I was shocked, I was scared.”
Judge McKinnon also sentenced Cecchetti to two and a half years for stabbing a former friend, Curtis Byfield, with a kitchen knife in a stairwell outside his flat in East London a year ago today. The pair had fallen out because Cecchetti believed Mr Byfield, 18, had stolen his hat.
Mr Byfield said the kitchen knife was “coming down towards me and hit my chest. I think he laughed. I think he smiled. I felt I was going to die.” After he collapsed on the floor, Cecchetti returned and tried to stab him in the head, according to Mr Byfield, who suffered a collapsed lung and nearly died.
Judge McKinnon took the unusual step of naming the juvenile, saying that he was “out of control” and posed a threat to the public. Cecchetti was excluded from school and had looked for murder statistics in a library the day before the attack on Miss Watts. On finding that his local borough, Hackney in East London, had the highest murder rate he shouted: “Yes!” While Cecchetti was on remand for the stabbing, he made phone calls boasting about the crime.
His criminal history began at the age of 11 when he was cautioned after his mother told police that he had left the house with a kitchen knife. He had notched upreceived 22 convictions in total for unlawful wounding, burglary, robbery, criminal damage, threats to kill, assault, using threatening words and behaviour, battery, possession of cannabis, possession of an offensive weapon and taking and driving away in the two years before the stabbings. He was also the subject of Hackney ‘s first Asbo anti-social behaviour order in August 2001.
Advertisement
Cecchetti admitted two street robberies in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, which took place after the attack on Miss Watts, but before he was charged. He was electronically tagged as part of his sentence for assault and battery by a juvenile court in October last year. Last month, while on remand at Feltham Young Offenders Institution, Cecchetti pleaded guilty to possessing 1.45 grams of heroin with intent to supply.
Henry Blaxland, QC, said in mitigation that he was an only child whose father had left when he was young and who had been bullied at school.