Soldier stabbed on street as 'his wife screams for help'

A British army soldier was repeatedly stabbed in an attack outside his home, as a woman thought to be his wife looked on in horror.

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN, HOLLY EVANS

The serviceman, who was in uniform, was reportedly attacked by a man on a motorcycle carrying kitchen knives on a residential street.

The victim, in his 40s, was airlifted to hospital, where he remains in a serious but stable condition after the stabbing in Sally Port Gardens in Gillingham, Kent – not far from Brompton Barracks, the headquarters of the British Army’s 1 Royal School of Military Engineering Regiment.

A 24-year-old local man was arrested in Rochester around 35 minutes after Tuesday night’s attack on suspicion of attempted murder. Last night, officers were granted a 24-hour extension to question him.

Dramatic doorstep footage from neighbours recorded the bloodcurdling screams of a woman, thought to be the soldier’s wife. She is heard hysterically shouting: “What are you doing?”

Witness Alex Reynolds, 38, spoke of his horror at the chaos unfolding a few hundred yards away. “The man was lying there and not moving,” he told The Independent. “We presumed he was dead, but I think he was told to just not move.”

Mr Reynolds’s wife Natasha, 30, added: “I hope he is going to have a good recovery because it’s really dreadful what happened.”