Robber jailed for life for stabbing woman near her London home

A man with a history of violent crime has been jailed for life with a minimum term of nine years for stabbing a woman metres from her home in an attack that left her in a persistent vegetative state.

Barry Peacham, 26, attacked business analyst Qingqing Rao, 30, as she walked home from work.

Peacham plunged a knife into her head before stealing her handbag, mobile phone and laptop computer. Rao was found lying unconscious by a path in Castle Green Park in Dagenham, east London, having suffered “catastrophic” injuries.

Since the attack on 13 February, she has been in a persistent vegetative state and is considered unlikely to regain consciousness.

Sentencing Peacham, Judge Anne Molyneux said: “This was a brutal, sadistic and cowardly attack on a lone female making her way home from work. You were a predator and showed her no mercy. The violence you used went way beyond that necessary for a robbery.”

Peacham was found guilty last month of wounding with intent and robbery following a trial at the Old Bailey, but cleared of attempted murder.

Rao’s husband, Ansgar Wenzel, has described his wife as a “wonderful, warm-hearted and happy girl, always friendly and happy to help anyone who needed her help”.

Raised in rural China in the 1980s, she excelled at school and won a place to study mathematics at Imperial College in London, where the couple met.

After attacking her, Peacham had gone back to his then home in nearby Maplestead Road, where he was described as being out of breath, wearing gloves, with a rip in his jeans and walking with a limp.

The victim’s credit cards and John Lewis gift card were recovered from a nearby drain, having been dropped by Peacham in the aftermath of the robbery.

Her red iPhone case and Tommy Hilfiger purse were also found later and identified by her husband as belonging to his wife. Her computer was never recovered.

Peacham, who worked as a gardener, has previous convictions dating back to 2008, when he was found guilty of possessing an offensive weapon in public.

In August of that year, police had been alerted to a man, later identified as Peacham, running at people with a knife at Goresbrook swimming pool before being restrained by relatives.

In May 2010, he was found guilty of robbery, assault with intent to rob, and having a 15cm (6in) kitchen knife in public following an incident the year before, which began in the same park where Rao was attacked.

Three young men picked out Peacham as the man who had punched one of them and held a knife against the throat of another before making off on a bicycle with one of their mobile phones.

Following the attack on Rao, police found a short sword during a search of a flat in Walthamstow, east London, where Peacham had been staying.