The Newshound

Off-duty Met officer with no kit tackles knifeman who slashed toddler's throat and woman's neck in Dagenham

From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.

Seff Serroukh, the off-duty Metropolitan Police special sergeant who restrained Kulvinder Ram alone and without equipment, had initially mistaken the blood-covered victims for a Halloween prank.
Seff Serroukh, the off-duty Metropolitan Police special sergeant who restrained Kulvinder Ram alone and without equipment, had initially mistaken the blood-covered victims for a Halloween prank.

Special Police Sergeant Seff Serroukh was walking home from work when he spotted a woman and her daughter covered in blood in Dagenham — initially mistaking the scene for a Halloween prank. Unarmed and alone, he sprinted towards the house, pinned Kulvinder Ram, 50, to the ground and held him until colleagues arrived. Ram had just slashed a two-year-old boy's throat, cut an eight-year-old girl's face from mouth to ear, and wounded the woman's neck.

Ram, who had undiagnosed schizophrenia and had threatened to kill one of the victims two weeks earlier, was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order at the Old Bailey.

Serroukh said: 'I had no safety equipment, no colleagues to assist — but as a father and a police officer, it was just a natural instinct.'

The victim told the court her daughter now carries permanent facial scarring: 'What happened to me, I can bear it, but this should never have happened to my daughter.'

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