Knife threat raises fears about police & authorities

Just now I received a very disturbing phone call from a Sussex resident. Chances are he could be dead now - it seems only luck, or God's grace, kept him alive to tell me his story.

He lives in a block of flats and, with his family, was terrorised for months by, he said, a man, as well as a woman who had suffered mental illness.

As well as being threatened by a knife, slogans were daubed around his home, doors kicked in. A very scary tale.

The knife was an ordinary kitchen carving knife - it was kept specially stored in the woman's home as a weapon (not kept in the kitchen). It had 'pride of place' to be brandished when the woman wanted to use it.

Calls to the authorities failed to solve the problem for many months. The worrying part here is that this law-abiding resident (from Chichester) could easily have been stabbed and died well before any action was taken to stop this woman threatening him with a knife.

Can the authorities, can the police be counted on when a knife attack is threatened or carried out? Looks like the jury is still out on this.