A former UK intelligence worker who attempted to kill a US spy in a “targeted and vicious” knife attack has been jailed for life.
Joshua Bowles, 29, described himself as a “terrorist” after repeatedly stabbing the American woman at a leisure centre just three miles from GCHQ’s base in Cheltenham.
Bowles, a former British employee at GCHQ, waited for the woman to leave the centre before launching the attack in the car park while armed with two knives on the evening of March 9.
An artist’s impression of Joshua Bowles who stabbed a woman at a leisure centre in Cheltenham (Elizabeth Cook/PA)
(PA Archive)
He then chased the woman into the reception area of the centre before resuming his vicious assault.
Bowles targeted the woman because she was a US government employee in the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States, and he had a desire to hurt his ex-employer for “employment reasons”.
The prosecution asserted Bowles’ attack was a planned terrorist-related attack.
On Monday morning, Bowles was jailed for life with a minimum term of 13 years in prison at the Old Bailey after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of the woman, referred to by the code number 99230, and assaulting a second person, causing actual bodily harm.
On Friday, the court had heard how the woman had been playing netball at the centre and was leaving with a friend, who was a fellow US national identified as 25869.
CCTV footage showed the pair walking into the car park followed by the defendant, who had been waiting in his car with two knives in a rucksack.
An aerial picture of GCHQ, where Bowles formerly worked (GCHQ/PA)
Bowles, of Welwyn Mews, Cheltenham, said “excuse me” and then repeatedly punched the woman in the face. Then when the victim and her friend ran back inside the leisure centre, Bowles attacked the woman again.
Prosecutor Duncan Penny KC said: “She was attacked by a man who was carrying two knives and she was stabbed three times outside, and in the reception area of, a leisure centre in Cheltenham.
“The attack which the perpetrator launched was intended to be lethal – that the helpless victim survived it was mere happenstance.
“Her selection as the target for this attack was entirely and solely associated with her role as a US government employee in the National Security Agency of the United States.”
A visitor at the leisure centre called Steve Bunn intervened in the attack, grabbing the defendant and enabling the two women to move away while Bowles dropped a knife on the floor.
And while waiting for police after the women had fled, Mr Bunn remembered Bowles saying he could no longer “handle the murky waters of ethics and whether they are doing the right thing and the power that the American NSA have and the things they do. It’s a good job I didn’t have a gun, isn’t it?
“What have I done? I’ve tried to kill her. I can’t believe this … They pay me all this money, I just couldn’t face the ethics of it … I make a pretty shit terrorist, don’t I?”
The woman suffered cuts to her abdoment, chest and thigh, the court heard on Friday. A victim impact statement read out said the attack had “utterly and completely changed” her life.
Mr Tim Forte, representing Bowles, said his client expressed “his profound regret, remorse and shame at what he has done”. Mr Forte dismissed the defendant’s comments as “bravado”, having realised his reasons were “petty and embarrassing”.
His twin motivations were “rejection by the object of his affections” and a desire to hurt his ex-employer “for employment reasons”, Mr Forte said.
This is a breaking news story – more to follow