A man will appear in court in London today charged with attempted murder. This follows an apparently random attack with a samurai sword during Mass at a church in south London at the weekend in which 11 people were injured, six of them seriously.
Mr Eden Strang (26), who is unemployed following the collapse last year of a computer business he set up with his brother, was charged yesterday with the attempted murder of Mr Paul Chilton, outside St Andrew's Roman Catholic Church in Thornton Heath, south London.
Detectives leading the investigation charged Mr Strang after he was questioned for several hours at Croydon police station in south London. It is understood they have been looking into reports that Mr Strang was suffering from severe depression and had been acting out of character in recent months.
Investigators have also discovered that Mr Strang was the victim of a stabbing and racial abuse in Glasgow in 1991 when he was a student.
In the Commons the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, expressed his sympathy for those who were injured and his admiration for those who intervened to put an end to the attack.
"I am sure I speak for the whole House in expressing my shock and outrage at the attack . . . It is hard to think of anything more terrible than to have the serenity of a church service destroyed in this way. I would like to express my deepest sympathy for those who were injured, their families and friends, and for the congregation, who witnessed this awful event."
At morning Mass yesterday about 100 parishioners - some still deeply traumatised by Sunday's events - gathered at St Andrew's to pray for the attacker and his family, and for those who were injured.
Ms Jessie Lissenburg said the community would find strength by coming together to pray about the experience: "You've got to carry on. We are a very strong community. I prayed for him and his family because we do not know what they must be going through."
One of the priests celebrating the Mass, Father Bill Agley, said it was important to pray for forgiveness. But he acknowledged that the service had been difficult: "We assume that he must have difficulties or troubles and, painful though it all is, and difficult, frightening and shocking, it is important to pray for his family. It was a difficult service for me but I felt privileged to be able to do something to help."
Six victims of the attack remained in the Mayday University Hospital last night in a painful but stable condition, as a surgeon described the horrific injuries sustained by Mr Chilton. A consultant surgeon, Mr Stephen Ebbs, said Mr Chilton had lost at least eight pints of blood and needed another 40 pints to stabilise his condition.
"The weapon had cut from his left ear . . . through the jugular vein and he was bleeding profusely. It was an almost unbelievably clean cut."