Hunt for fugitive Clapham chemical attacker: Police say ‘dangerous’ suspect, 35, who doused mother and two children in alkaline substance is from Newcastle area and has ‘significant’ injuries to his face – as video shows man fleeing scene after attack

A suspected chemical attacker who left a ‘vulnerable’ young mother and her three-year-old daughter with ‘life-changing injuries’ after dousing them with an alkaline substance in Clapham last night has been named as 35-year-old Abdul Ezedi.

Police said the ‘dangerous’ fugitive is from the Newcastle area and has ‘significant injuries to the right side of his face’. They urged members of the public not to approach him and instead call 999.

A 31-year-old woman – who is believed to be known to Ezedi – and her three-year-old daughter, alongside her other daughter, aged eight, remain in hospital in a stable condition. The ‘targeted’ attack injured nine others, including five police officers.

Ezedi also allegedly threw the younger child to the ground in the attack in Lessar Avenue, near Clapham Common, at 7.25pm. He was last seen on the Caledonian Road in Islington, and the Met say he ‘could be’ going back to Newcastle. 

Dramatic CCTV footage from last night – obtained exclusively by MailOnline – shows a man running along a road near to where the attack took place. He is seen briefly losing his footing on a speed bump before tripping on a curb and falling down.

The man, who is wearing a black jacket and a light-coloured t-shirt, then gets up and continues running. The CCTV was filmed from a nearby house and has has been shared with the Met.

It comes as a hotel near to where the attack took place confirmed the woman had been staying there. The South Belvedere Hotel said in a statement that it had ‘provided assistance to the guests affected’. A local woman said the hotel is home to refugees. 

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Police said in his attempt to drive away from the scene, the attacker crashed into a stationary vehicle and made off on foot.

Met Police Superintendent Gabriel Cameron said the force was working in collaboration with Northumbria Police as Ezedi ‘could be going back’ to Newcastle.

The officer urged the public not to approach Ezedi, after the Met previously described him as a ‘dangerous individual’.

Mr Cameron told reporters: ‘We will catch him, I’m wholeheartedly confident.’

Ezedi is believed to have travelled down from Newcastle on the day of the attack, but detectives are currently unsure what led to the incident.

The officer said: ‘The male was last seen in the north London area – Caledonian Road – and if you see him… I plea for you not to approach him, call 999.’

Mr Cameron said Ezedi may have been known to police previously.

He said: ‘At this stage I believe he may have been known to police, but he’s not a local resident from London as far as I’m aware. He’s come down from Newcastle.’

Mr Cameron added that it was a ‘horrific crime’ against a ‘vulnerable female’. 

One witness to the attack, bus driver Shannon Christi, 35, said she was affected by the substance while trying to help the woman and two children outside her home.

She told MailOnline: ‘I ran outside and saw this guy picking a little girl up and throwing her on the floor again and again.

‘I then saw the mum walking down the street shouting ”I can’t see, I can’t see”,’ she said. ‘So I called my partner to get some water. Staff at the hospital then came round to help and started dousing her in water.’ 

Ms Christi said she then felt her own skin ‘starting to tingle’. 

‘Me and the little girl went into the block to wash our eyes and faces with water,’ she said. 

‘I think what happened was she got it on her jacket when she fell on the floor and then it transferred it to me.’

The bus driver said staff took the toddler into the Clapham South Belvedere Hotel before going to wash her own arms and face. The attacker tried to escape in the car but crashed into a stationary vehicle before making off on foot. 

‘The man, who was dressed all in black, ran straight towards Balham and my partner chased him but he was wearing slippers,’ Ms Christi said. ‘I couldn’t really focus as I was looking after the girl, who just kept crying.’   

Further CCTV from last night shows the attacker getting into a car as the mother and one of her daughters stand in front of it holding their hands on their faces. He drives the car at the woman and hits her before getting out. 

He then opens the back door and violently throws the second daughter onto the ground ‘like he was in a wrestling ring’. At some point he threw an alkaline substance at the girls and their mother, causing her skin to ‘turn black’, according to witnesses. 

One woman, who did not want to be named, said she saw the man lift a child above his head and smash them onto the floor twice.

‘I heard the noise from outside, the screaming so I went to my window and saw a women screaming ‘help help’,’ she said. ‘I saw a child in the back of the car banging so I took my phone to call the police’.

She said that after a few minutes she saw the man open the car door and take a young child out of their seat.

‘He took the child from the seat and lifted him above his head and smashed him on the floor then he picked him up from the floor and did it again’.

Another woman, who did not want to be named, said she saw the children screaming ‘my mum, my mum’ as they were carried to the hotel by local residents.   

The mother and her children were first taken to the Belvedere Hotel last night where residents at the property said they were doused by police and ambulance staff. 

Three women – two in their 30s and one in her 50s – and a man in his 50s were also taken to hospital and treated for minor burns injuries after rushing to help the mother, as were five police officers. All have now been discharged. 

One woman told MailOnline she saw a child with a burn mark under her eye while another man, also staying at the hotel, said he heard screams while the woman was taken to the toilets by staff. 

Photos show a white Hyundai i20 hatchback with its doors open and windscreen shattered abandoned on the street, where homes sell for as much as £3million.

A member of the local resident’s association believes the woman was living at the Belvedere Hotel.

‘As I understand it, it was a domestic situation,’ said the local woman, who did not wish to be named. ‘She was a resident at the hotel.’ 

Superintendent Gabriel Cameron, a senior officer in Lambeth, said: ‘We believe the man and woman are known to each other.

‘Our investigation is in its early stages and we are working to establish why this awful incident has happened.

‘Officers from across the Met are working with partner agencies and forces to locate and arrest the man.

‘While this appears to be a targeted attack, he is a dangerous individual and we urgently need to find him.

‘We will release more information about him as soon as we can.’

The Met praised the efforts of the public for coming to the aid of the family.

Mr Cameron said: ‘All these members of the public and my officers deserve enormous recognition and praise for coming to the aid of this woman and children in what must have been a terrifying scenario.

‘We will provide them with all the support we can.

‘I also want to commend nearby hotel staff after victims and officers sought refuge and water there following the incident.’ 

Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said a manhunt involving a ‘big team’ of police officers is now under way.

‘It’s understandable that it’s frightening,’ he told BBC News. 

‘Fortunately, attacks using acid and chemicals are exceedingly rare. We did have a spate of them two or three years ago, you might remember.

‘It’s not something we’ve seen much of at all recently, I’m pleased to say.

‘This is a ghastly attack, and the first thing to say is we have a live manhunt.

‘The suspected offender we believe was known to the victims and so we have a big team of officers, (including) the local officers who dealt with it assisted by colleagues.

‘We are hunting for him as we speak.’

Sir Mark paid tribute to the bravery of members of the public and police.

‘Four members of the public got involved, three women and a man, and three of them have had hospital treatment and been discharged,’ he said. 

‘I have four or five officers who got involved as well and have had to go to hospital and get checked out because of their contact with the chemical.’

He clarified that three members of the public went to hospital following the incident, as well as five police officers.

Only the mother and her two young daughters remain in hospital, Sir Mark said. 

A police cordon has now been lifted with no officers at the scene. 

A clinical waste bag has been left strewn outside of the home in the leafy street.

Meanwhile a section of the road on Lessar Avenue remains damp from where officers are thought to have washed down the area.

One woman who lives near the scene said she heard a ‘loud bang’ and when she came outside saw police.

‘I heard a loud bang,’ she told MailOnline. ‘When I went out the house there were police everywhere and I couldn’t get out of my house at all.’

Another witness described the mother’s horrific injuries. 

‘Her lips were completely black,’ he told BBC Breakfast. ‘Her face look really burnt, like stripped off basically.’  

Forensics teams at the scene could be seen inspecting a thermal cup which may have been used to throw the alkaline substance.

Speaking from the scene in south London, Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy said: ‘We know a woman and her two children are still in hospital having been attacked with corrosive substance, and we know that whilst the injuries they sustained aren’t life threatening they could be life changing. We’re waiting for more updates from the hospital and obviously our thoughts and prayers and concerns are with all of them.’

She said members of the public and police who assisted the family and were affected by the substance are ‘all fine’, and emergency services have ‘gone to great lengths’ to wash the substance from the residential road.

‘Police are engaged in an active manhunt at the moment, it seems the individual was known to the woman and children attacked, so we don’t think that any random attacks are happening and we want to assure people in the local area that they are perfectly safe.

‘This was a horrible and quite specific attack. I think it was very brave of all those who were on the scene to immediately come to their aid, running into different properties to get water.’

The Belvedere Hotel said in a statement: ‘Staff have provided assistance to the guests affected and sought to reassure other hotel guests as to their safety and wellbeing.

‘The staff team will continue to provide assistance to guests and the police going forward. As this is an ongoing police investigation, we are not able to provide any further comment.’  

Police in England and Wales recorded 472 violent and robbery offences involving a corrosive substance in the year to March 2023, the latest available figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.

There were 525 recorded in the previous 12-month period.

The data is published annually and only dates back to March 2020, when current records began.

The Home Office started collecting data on some offences involving corrosive substances from April 2019 as part of a government pledge to tackle such attacks.

The figures to March 2023 exclude any reports that may have been made to Devon and Cornwall Police because the force has been unable to supply data due to problems with a new computer system.