CROSBY: Samaritan sailor is stabbed

Samaritan sailor is stabbed

A NAVY mechanic was stabbed three times as he tried to stop yobs attacking a girl.

Thomas Dowell from Crosby was today recovering in hospital after Saturday night’s attack.

His mother Pauline said he had been on shore leave and walking along College Road on his way to a party at around 9.30pm when he saw a gang of youths aged around 15 attacking a girl.

She said: “He went up to them and said ‘Leave her alone’ and they set on him.

“There were between seven and 10 of them and he was stabbed at least twice in the back and once in the stomach.”

Bleeding and in agony, the mild-mannered 23-year-old crawled to the nearby Edinburgh Pub.

But Pauline said the group followed him, shouting: “Stab him again, stab him again.”

Thomas’s pals managed to pull the gang off and call an ambulance.

He was taken to Fazakerley hospital where it emerged the knife narrowly missed his stomach lining.

It was initially feared the stab wounds had burst the seaman’s bowels. and he has undergone surgery.

Pauline said Tom, a former pupil at Sacred Heart high school in Crosby and a Liverpool FC fan, is based at Portsmouth and drives back to Merseyside whenever he has a free weekend.

He has two brothers, Joseph, 20, and James, 17, and recently bought a house in the area.

His mother added: “We just can’t believe this has happened.

“He’s a lovely lad and he was looking forward to his week at home and seeing all his family and friends.

“He was actually going to meet up with his two brothers and his cousins when he was stabbed.

“What are these kids doing with knives, specially after everything that’s happened recently?

“Thank God he’s going to make a full recovery.”

Thomas has served in Beirut aboard HMS Gloucester.

He went to Southport College when he was 16 and left to join the navy at 17.

He has travelled round Europe and is soon set to be posted in South America for nine months.

Pauline, 45, said: “He loves it and he’d just been promoted. He was looking forward to going back on Sunday but that will have to be put back now.

“It just shows what a brave lad he is by going over to that girl who was screaming.”

Police tape was still up around the crime scene yesterday.

A Merseyside police spokesman said two youths, one from Crosby and one from Everton, had been arrested and bailed.

Pauline added: “This was a despicable attack on a lad trying to be a good Samaritan. He seems to have been an innocent bystander.”

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2007/10/01/samaritan-sailor-is-stabbed-100252-19875737/