Machete attacker who hunted Tube commuter ‘like Terminator’ jailed for 16 years

A man who ‘relentlessly’ hacked at a London Underground passenger with a machete in front of terrified commuters in a scene compared to The Terminator has been jailed for 16 years.

In what was described in court as ‘every Tube traveller’s nightmare’, Ricky Morgan pulled out the huge blade on a packed Jubilee line service before slashing at James Porritt in July last year.

The victim, who said he was in a ‘bubble’ minding his own business, suddenly felt ‘relentless and persistent strikes’ raining down on his head.

He told a court he instinctively put his hands up to protect himself before realising the blows came from a ‘sharp obect’ that had cut his hand ‘into several pieces’.

Mr Porritt began pleading ‘please stop, please stop’, only for Morgan, 34, to continue robotically ‘hacking away’.

He eventually managed to flee into another carriage while his attacker yelled: ‘This is not a terror attack. I only want him.’

This did little to reassure the other horrified passengers, who started ‘screaming and frantically trying to get away’, the Old Bailey was told.

But many couldn’t make it through the emergency door as he drove them down the end of the aisle and some fell over each other as they cowered against the sides of the carriage.

The victim said the experience felt like ‘a horror movie’ and that Morgan’s onslaught was like that of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s killer cyborg in the 1980s sci-fi classic.

‘I genuinely thought he was going to kill me,’ he told the court.

As he lay prone on the ground being handcuffed, Morgan shouted to officers: ‘It’s not a [expletive] terrorist attack, I had a beef with someone’.

He was also heard yelling: ‘It’s not a terrorist attack, I didn’t realise I [had] done it in a tunnel.’

Jailing the 34-year-old for life with a minimum sentence of 16 years, Judge John Hillen told him: ‘Having watched many times during the trial the ferocity of your attack captured by on-board CCTV images, James Porritt is very lucky to have survived.

‘It was a wonder that no-one else suffered injury. I think it is not too sensationalist or overdramatic to say this was every Tube traveller’s nightmare.’

Mr Porritt, a self-employed businessman, had been to the gym and was on his way to meet his girlfriend and her father in west London at the time of the attack.

It left his hand so badly mutilated that he and his partner ‘cannot hold hands like we used to’, he said, leaving him ‘heartbroken’.

He can no longer sign his own name or do sports he used to enjoy, and said seeing Morgan behind bars had done nothing to cure him of feeling unsafe while travelling.

Mr Porritt told the court: ‘This is not fair, I do not deserve this. This should not have happened to me.’

The defendant had denied attempted murder on grounds of insanity but was found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey in Mary after two days of deliberations.

He was also convicted of possessing a machete and a lock knife.

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