A former rugby player says he feels like he’s used ‘two or three’ of his nine lives after he was attacked by a man with a samurai sword.
Alex Ogbechie was meeting friends at Boisdale, a whisky and cigar bar in Canary Wharf, on Saturday night.
At the same time, he was due to meet an acquaintance who wanted to buy some cigars from him.
A cigar connoisseur, 45-year-old Alex was happy to meet – but he was horrified to see the attacker out of the corner of his eye coming towards him with a samurai sword.
Alex was able to turn just in time, meaning the sword cut through his arm and side, rather than potentially plunging into his torso.
He suffered major nerve damage in his arm, losing movement in three of his fingers, and could be off work for months while he recovers.
Alex, from West London, told Metro: ‘He had called me previously, asking if I could bring a couple of cigars for him, so we arranged to meet.
‘He called me and asked where I was, I told him I was already upstairs in the restaurant and to come up, but he said he wasn’t dressed properly and I should come downstairs and meet him the car park.
‘I tried to tell him it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, just come up, but he wouldn’t.
‘I went down to the car park and we spoke briefly, just pleasantries, then he took the cigars and he put them in the boot of his car.
‘Then he said “let me get my wallet, it’s in the car” and it seemed like he was stalling.
‘There was a couple behind us waiting to drive off, so I think that’s why he was stalling, and I turned around when they asked me where they could pay for their parking, so I told them.
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‘Out of the corner of my eye I saw him coming, I turned around and he had a samurai sword. He had one hand on the hilt and the other on the blade and he thrust at me.
‘It went through my arm and into my side, then he pulled it straight out and ran off.’
Alex believes that if he hadn’t spotted his assailant and turned around, the samurai sword would have pierced straight through his chest.
He said he ‘never would have imagined’ his acquaintance would be violent, but after the stabbing he was in ‘shock’ seeing blood pouring down his clothes.
First off, Alex tried to call someone to tell them what happened, but he couldn’t get any signal in the Cabot Square underground car park.
Then, fearing he would lose too much blood and fall unconscious, he managed to get back upstairs to the restaurant where he met his friends, one of whom wrapped their jacket around his arm to try and stem the bleeding.
‘All I was thinking about was “I can’t collapse in front of him because I don’t know what he would do”,’ Alex explained. ‘I had to get where there are other people. I can’t pass out here.’
By then the emergency services had been called and paramedics arrived on the scene within four minutes, before Alex and one of his friends was taken to hospital.
‘That sword could have gone through me and straight out the other side,’ Alex said, speaking soon after he was discharged from hospital on Monday afternoon.
He had emergency surgery on Sunday to try and repair the nerves and tendons in his left arm, as well as receiving further treatment for cuts to his side and other arm.
Alex praised hospital staff who treated him, who he said were ‘very helpful’ and went through the entire process with him.
Knife crime in London: The facts
The statistics don’t lie: knife crime is a problem across the UK. There were more than 53,000 knife offences reported across England and Wales in the year to March.
Figures released earlier this year found nearly half of all murders committed in the UK over the last three years were caused by a knife.
In London specifically, 16,344 knife crimes were recorded by the Met and City of London police in the 12 months to March 2025, compared with 14,939 in the previous year.
Recent cases include a quadruple stabbing in Southwark where two men died, an attack in Newham where a 14-year-old boy was left fighting for his life, and a teenage boy who died after being stabbed 27 times at the back of a bus.
These figures mean knife crime in the capital now makes up 31% of all knife crime across England and Wales.
But changes are coming. A new law in Ronan Kanda’s name bans ‘ninja swords’ after the 16-year-old was killed with one in 2022 – and his sister has hailed the new law as her brother’s ‘legacy’.
He added: ‘Hopefully I will get some movement back in my fingers.
‘I can’t go back to work because I can’t use my arm, so I hope I recover quickly enough to get back to work and back into a routine.’
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: ‘Police were called by the London Ambulance Service at 9.29pm on Saturday, August 2 to reports a man had been stabbed in a car park at Cabot Square, Canary Wharf.
‘A man in his 40s was found at the scene with serious injuries and was taken to hospital. His injuries have been deemed non-life changing.
‘A man in his 50s was arrested on Monday, August 4 and remains in custody.’
The London Ambulance Service added: ‘We were called at 9.28pm on Saturday to reports of a stabbing on Cabot Square, E14.
‘We sent resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, an incident response officer and a paramedic in a fast response car. We also dispatched a trauma team in a car from London’s Air Ambulance.
‘Our first paramedics arrived in four minutes.
‘We treated a man at the scene and took him to a major trauma centre.’
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