A knifeman who stabbed five people in a Manchester shopping centre after buying a £1.50 blade in his local shop is to be detained in hospital indefinitely.
Manchester Arndale shopping centre shoppers fled for their safety and ran to cover when Raphael Chevelleau (33) stabbed three people while trying to wound another two as he raced around the mall.
Chevelleau is a paranoid schizophrenia. He bought the knife at a Blackley Pound Store in Rochdale Road on October 11, 2019, before taking a bus to the city.
Manchester Crown Court was told that he arrived at the Arndale around 11.05am. He then went to a baby-change area where he opened the packaging of the knife and took the chef’s knife out of his jacket pocket.
Prosecutors described that he ran ‘without warning’ and randomly knifed five people.
Raphael Chevelleau, a Schizophrenic, entered Manchester’s Arndale shopping center at 11.05 am. He then went into a baby-change area where he opened the packaging of the knife and took the knife out of his jacket pocket.
‘Smiling’ Manchester knifeman Raphael Chevelleau, 43, launched a violent stabbing spree that lasted just over a minute in Manchester’s Arndale shopping centre
Chevelleau first attacked a 61 year-old engineer and stabbed him in the back.
He quickly moved onto a 35 year-old woman, who was standing in front of her husband.
He ran by them, the court was told. Then he returned with the knife and pointed it towards her stomach.
Chevelleau’s ‘wide, cheesy smile’ was what the woman later remembered as he assaulted her.
Chevelleau then targeted a woman, 45 years old, pushing her child in a pram. She was lucky to escape when the knife got close to her ribs.
A 21 year-old Irish woman visiting London with her friends was assaulted as she and her group, carrying suitcases, sat outside Starbucks.
According to her, people shouted “everybody runs” as she was pursued by a security officer.
She stated that the man looked right through her and seemed to really want to harm me.
Chevelleau grabbed Chevelleau and attacked her right shoulder.
As he fled from the Arndale, he attacked his last victim, a female employee at a department store aged 52 years.
As she grabbed a railing on the steps, she said that she felt impact in her left arm as well as back.
After Chevelleau had stabbed her, she fled to the Arndale and said that if he returns, he would kill me. It seemed like I had been defeated.
Ford stated that only her layers, which included a bubble-coat, indicated she wasn’t more severely injured.
Following his one-minute and 27 second violent rampage, Chevelleau left the knife behind in a street trash can.
Chilling CCTV footage from Blackley Pound Store in Rochdale captures the moment Chevelleau (pictured above with the knife on the counter) calmly purchased the £1.50 blade he used during a random rampage that saw him stab five people
According to the prosecution, Chevelleau’s minute-long stabbing spree caused widespread fear and panic in the public. Pictured (right), he is running past bystanders
Today, Judge Nicholas Dean QC told Manchester Crown Court: ‘A sense of pandemonium reigned as people fled the precinct.’
Chevelleau pleaded guilty to three section 18 assaults and two attempted section 18 assaults.
He later told police ‘this was for my people’ and said: ‘I was going to stab my ex-girlfriend but I couldn’t be bothered to travel.’
Court was informed about Natalie, the woman Chevelleau became ‘fixed’ with. It was heard that while ‘Natalie’ is a real person, she is regarded as being ‘part of his delusional ideas’.
Chevelleau, who was 41 at the time, had not been in a relationship with her and had not seen her for at least 10 years.
Referring to ‘Natalie’ after being arrested, Chevelleau said: ‘I was going to stab my ex-girlfriend but I couldn’t be bothered to travel.’
After getting off the bus in Manchester city centre he decided to ‘take it out on members of the public’ instead, Judge Dean said.
The incident had ‘life-changing consequences’ for the five victims, the court heard.
Judge Dean said Chevelleau’s intention to seek out and attack ‘Natalie’, and the stabbings in the Arndale, were ‘entirely driven’ by his paranoid schizophrenia.
Chevelleau was sentenced under the Mental Health Act to be detained indefinitely at Ashworth Hospital, a high-security psychiatric unit in Maghull, Merseyside.
If he were to be released then Chevelleau would pose a ‘substantial risk’ of causing serious injury or death, the judge said.
Judge Dean added: ‘It is difficult to see that risk will ever be managed in the community.’
The judge said that if Chevelleau did not suffer from mental health problems, he would have received a life sentence with a minimum term of 15 years in prison.
As today’s hearing finished, Chevelleau, of Rochdale Road, Blackley, asked the judge: ‘Can I say something?’
Judge Dean, noting the defendant would be able to speak to his barrister after the hearing, replied: ‘No thank you, Mr Chevelleau.’