Foster mum relives horror knife attack
Christine Mackay, age 58 of Beachampton, Buckinghamshire. She is pictured in the same room in her house where she was attacked and stabbed by a former foster child who escaped from custody before coming to attack her - PICTURE BY JOHN McLELLAN - 11.5.12
A FOSTER mum was almost stabbed to death by an illegal immigrant teenager placed in her care by city social services.
The asylum seeker attacked Christine Mackay with a kitchen knife as she slept, cutting through her tendons and almost severing her thumb and causing her to lose four pints of blood.
Now, as the youth begins a 14-year jail sentence for attempted murder, Mrs Mackay has criticised government fostering policies for putting her at risk.
She said the law should have enable more vigorous checks to be carried out on youngsters needing foster care.
The youth was housed with her three days after he arrived in the UK with no identification.
He had been picked up in Milton Keynes by police and claimed to be a 15-year-old Palestinian called Aziz Achaheb-Cedar.
Mrs Mackay, 58, provided him with Sky TV in his room, a bicycle and a phone. But he responded by trying to steal her car and attempting to hang himself.
“I was frightened of him,” said the foster mum.“He was looking at me like he wanted to kill me. I rang up and said that I did not feel safe in my own home.”
Social workers agreed to rehouse the teenager but two days later he disappeared.
A fortnight later he returned to Mrs Mackay’s home, breaking in at 2am and taking a four-inch knife from the dishwasher.
Mrs Mackay woke to find the knife pointed at her.
She said: “I grabbed the blade and just refused to let go of it. He tried to pull it away from me and in doing so he cut through 40 per cent of the tendons in my hands and almost severed a thumb.”
Despite her ordeal Mrs Mackay is continuing to foster children.
“Most of them are lovely, lovely children. But in cases such as this the law should require more checks to be made to ensure the safety of foster parents.”
Social services said the boy had been “age assessed following established procedure”. He was deemed to be 15 years old and thus accepted as a child in care.
Social workers carried out a full risk assessment, they said.
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Thursday 23 May 2013
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