A photo of the schizophrenic Albanian woman who slashed the throat of an innocent seven-year-old girl can be shared for the first time since the horrifying attack.
Paranoid schizophrenic Eltiona Skana, 30, grabbed Emily Jones as she was riding her scooter through Queen’s Park in Bolton on Mother’s Day and slashed her throat, in front of her horrified parents.
Skana was known to pose a threat to youngsters by medical staff, but staff monitoring the Albanian in the community had no idea of the danger.
She pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and will be sentenced on Tuesday.
Emily spotted Sarah, 42, running along the bottom of the hill and excitedly said: ‘Daddy, daddy. I want to go to Mum.’ Mark, 49, replied ‘Of course’ and she shot off down a path that snakes its way down the hill.
But as Emily sped towards Sarah – calling out ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!’ to attract her attention – a lone figure sitting on a bench jumped up and grabbed her, put her in a headlock and cut her throat with a craft knife.
Sarah, who was wearing headphones, had not seen or heard Emily and kept running, oblivious to the appalling scene happening nearby. Mark, who was 200 yards away, initially thought his daughter had fallen off her scooter and that the figure holding Emily was helping pick her up, until a woman nearby shouted: ‘She’s been stabbed.’
He sprinted to his grievously wounded daughter but her psychotic attacker had already thrown Emily to the ground and run off. Mark cradled Emily from behind and shouted for help.
‘I ran for Emily,’ he said, leaning forward and speaking quietly. ‘I was absolutely terrified. I just knew it was so bad. You don’t survive these things.
‘I just thought, “Oh my God, I’m going to lose her, I’m going to lose her.” I was shouting, “Just stay with me Emily, stay with me. Don’t leave me.”
‘She was just trying to breathe. It was just horrific. I wouldn’t wish anybody to see that happen to their own daughter. On occasions I will go back there. I try not to. But I can just remember her trying to breathe. Just to see your child in that way. I thought, “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening to Emily.” ‘
He frantically phoned Sarah who was still running and unaware of the attack. ‘I called and said “Come back, come back we’ve just seen you. Emily’s been stabbed”,’ Mark recalled. By then, a passer-by had passed him a T-shirt to try to stem the bleeding, while a nurse who had been in the park had taken over first aid.
Emily was flown by air ambulance to Salford Royal Hospital but she died half an hour after her arrival. Last week, her killer Eltiona Skana, a paranoid schizophrenic, was convicted of manslaughter with diminished responsibility. Prosecutors dropped a murder charge on the seventh day of a trial at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester.
‘From that to the absolute horror of me having to phone my mum and telling her Emily had gone. Her crying on the phone. Sarah having to phone her parents. Us all around Sarah’s house at night. It was just horrific. Those days… how we got through them, I really don’t know, to be honest.’
The loss of his only child has left a gaping chasm in his life.
‘We had these responsibilities and this brilliant life of having fun with Emily and her friends. And now everything is just serious. I don’t have that interaction with children any more. That’s pretty difficult.’