Pregnant woman stabbed in broad daylight – then recognises attacker | UK | News
A pregnant woman was stabbed multiple times in broad daylight in the middle of a busy main street; It was later revealed who was responsible for the crazy and shocking attack.
At the time of the incident, Natalie Queiroz was eight months pregnant with a girl and was looking forward to an exciting future with her fiancé Babur ‘Bobby’ Raja. But on a rainy day in March 2016, as she headed to Birmingham Sutton Coldfield city center to shop, her life changed forever.
Natalie, then 40, recalls hearing “footsteps running behind her” and initially panicking, thinking she was about to be attacked, but considering it was 3pm and she was only a short walk away from the bustle of nearby shops, where there were many people nearby, she assumed she was safe.
He was wrong. A man dressed in dark jeans and a black hoodie attacked her from behind and began stabbing her.
Natalie instinctively tried to protect her growing belly but told the BBC the attack was “non-stop”.
When she caught a glimpse of her attacker, she thought she recognized him as Bobby, her beloved fiancee, but quickly dismissed the idea.
Passersby intervened and pulled the attacker off of him, while Natalie tried to run towards the stores to hide. He said: “I was looking downtown… and I remember thinking: ‘I need to get there, because if I can get there I can get help.'”
Given the extent of her injuries, Natalie collapsed and momentarily fainted. But the attacker wasn’t done; He managed to evade the Good Samaritans who had saved him from Natalie in the first place, and when Natalie regained consciousness, he headed towards her to continue the attack.
He said: “I bent my head down and he pulled me in front of me, crouched down and started attacking again.”
Natalie’s fleeting thought that her loving fiancé and the father of her unborn child were responsible for the massacre was correct.
Babur ‘Bobby’ Raja stabbed him 24 times. He also injured passers-by who were fighting with him.
Until that heartbreaking day on March 4, 2016, Natalie had no doubts about Bobby.
In previous days, he had been “relaxing and cuddling” Natalie in bed and had even bought “bonuses” for the midwives during his visit to the maternity ward.
Natalie shared a series of photos on social media; The first photo showed her and Bobby embracing. He said: “He admitted he had been planning this for at least two weeks. He knew on the 1st.” [photo].
“There was NO warning. He went to work that Friday, picked up lunch 30 minutes before, and I spoke to him on the phone 20 minutes before that – my last words were ‘I love you’.”
Bobby’s plan involved him keeping the 12-inch carving knife used in the attack and a backpack “in his car for two days, along with spare clothes and shoes,” but he “acted normally” and gave Natalie no reason to suspect what he was about to do to her.
Natalie described the 9-minute torture as a “cold, planned, violent murder attempt” and said medics branded it an “execution” because Bobby managed to “hit all his major organs”.
She was airlifted to QE Hospital in Birmingham, where she “underwent major surgery to repair damage to her heart, lungs, liver, wrist and abdomen, as well as an emergency caesarean section in the operating theatre”.
Both Natalie and her daughter survived, but they are still traumatized by what happened.
Babur Raja, who was 41 at the time, admitted to attempted murder, attempted murder of children, possessed a knife in a public place and injured and assaulted two passers-by.
The court was told Bobby attacked Natalie after being forced to choose between his conservative Muslim mother’s faith and the “love of his life”, which left him “over the edge”.
He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
