Blackpool knifeman who fled after 'frenzied' attack jailed
'Panic attacks'
Police said Mr Cardwell, 38, had confronted Alshafi in the street over allegations that he had assaulted his girlfriend.Alshafi then pulled a flick knife from his coat pocket and carried out what detectives described as a "brutal and sustained" attack.Mr Cardwell, who was given five bags of blood at the scene due to the amount he had lost, was taken to Royal Preston Hospital.Police said the 38-year-old "thought he was going to die from the attack" and that he remained badly affected "both physically and emotionally".He still "struggles with panic attacks and flashbacks", the force said.Detective Constable Sally Blair said: "This was a brutal and sustained assault which could easily have cost Craig his life had it not been for the bravery of people at the scene, including off-duty paramedics, who came to his aid."Alshafi is clearly a man with a proclivity to extreme violence, and I welcome this significant sentence."
Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on BBC Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
31 minutes ago
- Sky News
'Trust and confidence lost' over grooming gang failures in Manchester, watchdog warns
Despite making "significant improvements", Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has lost the "trust and confidence" of some victims of grooming gangs, according to a report by the police watchdog. Michelle Skeer, His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, said that since 2019, when GMP started to review its non-recent child sexual exploitation investigations, "the force has improved its understanding and approach to investigating allegations of child criminal and sexual exploitation". The document, published today, said police have live investigations into "multi-victim, multi-offender" child sexual exploitation inquiries, involving 714 victims and survivors, and 1,099 suspects. Grooming gangs scandal timeline 2:00 But despite recording improvements, a report by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) also identified: • Various training gaps within the investigation team • Lack of consistency in evaluating case files between social care, health and police • Failures to initially support victims meant they had "lost trust and confidence" in police The report was commissioned by the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham in 2024 to evaluate whether police, councils and health services can protect children from sexual exploitation in the future. Its release comes days after Sir Keir Starmer announced he was launching a new national inquiry into grooming gangs after previously arguing one was not necessary, 1:40 The findings were issued as the final part of the CSE (child sexual exploitation) Assurance Review process which started in 2017. The first three reports examined non-recent child sexual exploitation in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale. Mr Skeer said that the force has been trying to improve its service to those who have experienced sexual exploitation, but previous failings have badly affected trust in GMP. He said: "For some, trust and confidence in the police had been lost, and the force would not be able to rectify their experiences. "It is vital that improvements are led by victims' experiences, and if they do come forward, they are supported, protected and taken seriously." A recent report by Baroness Casey found a significant over-representation of Asian men who are suspects in grooming gangs in Greater Manchester, adding though authorities are in "denial" more needs to be done to understand why this is the case. 6:52 Inspectors also said there were "training gaps" in some investigation teams and issues with data sharing, with local councils sometimes not willing to provide detectives with information, leading to "significant delays in investigations" into grooming gangs. It cites problems with intelligence provided by Manchester City Council, which took months to arrive and "was so heavily redacted that some pages contained only a few words", the report said. GMP is the only force in the country to set up a dedicated team to investigate grooming gangs. Called the Child Sexual Exploitation Major Investigation Team (CSE MIT) it has about 100 staff and a ringfenced budget. In October 2024, the force told inspectors there were 59 live multi-victim, multi-offender child sexual exploitation investigations, of which 13 were being managed by the CSE MIT. The report adds: "The force fully accepts that it made mistakes in the past. "It has taken positive and effective steps to learn from these mistakes and improve how it investigates recent and non-recent child sexual exploitation." Separately, the Baird Inquiry published in July 2024 found officers at GMP were abusing their power - making unlawful arrests, unlawful and demeaning strip searches, sometimes treating victims as perpetrators, and traumatising those who have suffered sexual abuse or domestic violence.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Lenders must probe joint borrowers for signs of exploitation
Economic manipulation as a form of domestic abuse has attracted rising recent attention, but fears remain that the law is not protecting the most vulnerable. The Supreme Court highlighted the 'damaging effects' of the problem in a case ruling last month that a bank had a duty to investigate whether a woman faced undue influence from her partner when the couple took out a mortgage that would be used partly to pay off his debts. The judges ruled unanimously that staff at One Savings Bank knew that money loaned to allow Catherine Waller-Edwards to remortgage her home would be used in a way that did not benefit her financially and it should therefore have checked to determine whether Nicholas Bishop had put her under undue influence.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Don't overlook crypto when splitting assets in divorce
As digital currencies such as bitcoin, ethereum and solana become common holdings among the wealthy, they are increasingly used to conceal assets in divorce cases. In many ways, crypto functions like a digital offshore account — decentralised, borderless and often anonymous. Its pseudonymous nature makes it uniquely difficult to trace, value, or even prove it exists. Unlike a share certificate or bank statement, a crypto wallet might exist on a USB stick in a drawer, or be locked behind a password and 12-word seed phrase known only to the holder. If someone claims they have lost access, that may be the end of the trail. Even when crypto is disclosed, it still poses difficulties. These assets can be highly volatile, particularly altcoins, so unless both parties agree to share that risk, valuing them fairly becomes problematic. It is also relatively easy for someone anticipating divorce to open a crypto exchange account on a phone and quietly move funds there, sometimes years in advance. Yet disclosure typically only covers the past 12 months unless there is a clear reason to investigate further. This murkiness creates a growing blind spot in divorce litigation. There is no consistent UK legal framework for disclosing crypto and limited case law to guide lawyers and judges. That opens the door to disputes and grey areas, particularly when disclosure is incomplete or suspected to be dishonest. For international cases, the complexity increases significantly. If digital assets are held on overseas exchanges, especially in jurisdictions that do not co-operate with UK courts, there may be no practical way to obtain information or enforce a financial settlement. Tracing crypto that has been moved, converted into privacy coins, or hidden through tumbling services — a process of mixing identifiable funds with nonidentifiable — can be incredibly difficult and sometimes impossible without specialist forensic expertise. Solicitors must look for tell-tale signs of concealment, undeclared exchange accounts or large unexplained transfers. And when red flags arise, lawyers increasingly rely on forensic investigators who understand blockchain analysis and can follow the money. But it is not just a technical problem, it is emotional too. When one party believes assets are being hidden in crypto, it fuels mistrust and escalates conflict. Relatively straightforward financial cases become emotionally charged battlegrounds once digital asset concealment is suspected. As more wealth is stored digitally, this will only grow as a challenge for the courts. Until the law catches up, crypto will continue to be a grey area that some exploit, others fear, and many don't fully understand. For divorcing couples, the message is clear: do not underestimate the role crypto may be playing in the financial Maguire is the managing director of Maguire Family Law
