British man sentenced to 5 years for stabbing tourist, another victim in Amsterdam
A 30-year-old British man was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for stabbing two men in separate attacks in the city center, one involving a tourist during a 2022 robbery and the other a 2024 nightlife fight. Both incidents were ruled attempted manslaughter, with the first also involving violent extortion. The court ordered him to pay a combined 27,000 euros in damages to the victims, with time already spent in pretrial detention to be deducted from the sentence.
On the night of Sept. 20-21, 2022, the man approached a tourist in the Wallengebied and asked where an ATM was. He continued walking with the tourist, then suddenly attacked him in the Prinsenhofssteeg, pulling a knife from his waistband. The tourist fled but was overtaken on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal, where the man stabbed him in the arm, armpit, and abdomen while shouting “money.”
In the early morning of Dec. 1, 2024, the man became involved in a street fight near a nightclub on the Rembrandtplein. After the second victim kicked him and fell, the man stabbed the victim four times. The victim suffered a collapsed lung and blood in his chest cavity, spent a week in the hospital, continues to have ongoing arm pain and has multiple scars.
The court described the tourist as vulnerable. “The complainant was vulnerable; a tourist in a strange city and under the influence of alcohol. The suspect has grossly abused that,” the ruling stated. It characterized the second attack as senseless nightlife violence.
Police arrested the man a few days after the 2024 stabbing. He was carrying a loaded pistol and had tried unsuccessfully to evade capture by shaving his hair. He is from Great Britain and was first imprisoned at age 15. He has prior convictions in Australia, Great Britain and Norway, where a lengthy prison sentence remains outstanding.
