Brixton slash attacks: Man jailed for random murder and attacks

A man has been jailed for life with a minimum 32-year term for a series of slasher attacks on strangers, ending with the random murder of a woman in south London.

Mohamed Nur, 34, was armed with a makeshift blade when he cut the throat of Johanita Kossiwa Dogbey, 31, in daylight in Brixton on 1 May 2023.

She was walking in Stockwell Park Walk after going into central London to do some shopping when Nur attacked her from behind. She died at the scene.

Two days earlier, he had slashed the faces of two women and a man in what the Old Bailey heard were “unprovoked and random” attacks.

Ms Dogbey’s younger sister Laura wept in court as she read a victim impact statement, paying tribute to her “pure, innocent and loving sister” who she described as her “best friend and protector”.

She said her big sister had encouraged her with her reading and writing and bought her books but her murder had “killed all of us”.

“What words can I use to describe how broken I am?” she said.

Her sister also described how she had not been able to sit her school exams, saying “no matter where I am, my mind takes me back to that horrific day”.

Judge Angela Rafferty KC told the court had Nur not been arrested, she believed he would have attacked again.

The murder was “random, vicious, horrific” and “without mercy”, she said.

Nur was not at the Old Bailey for sentencing and had also not attended any of his trial hearings.

Judge Rafferty KC looked straight ahead at the dock, as if Nur was there, as she delivered her sentencing, and said she had requested that a copy be sent to Belmarsh Prison to be read out to him.

“These attacks were sudden, random and terrifying,” she said, referring to the footage of the attack on Ms Dogbey as “sickening”, adding that the “the savagery of your attack is hard to convey in words”.

She said she was satisfied Nur had gone out planning to attack someone that day, and said it was “a random, vicious and a horrifying attack by a person who she had never met”.

Nur previously admitted Ms Dogbey’s murder and having a blade, as well as another weapon made from broken glass, when he was arrested the following day.

He denied three counts of unlawful wounding in relation to the other attacks, but was found guilty on 13 May following a trial.

Nur, who came to the UK from Somalia in 1993, became addicted to drugs and was homeless from December 2022, the court heard.

At the time of the attacks, he was living in accommodation for vulnerable adults in Vauxhall, south London, and had previous convictions for possession of cannabis, a firearm, ammunition and blades.