Soldier 'lucky to survive' stabbing near barracks

"I knew I was in trouble," said Lt Col Mark Teeton, describing the moment Anthony Esan suddenly shed his fake demeanour and launched his brutal attack.

Shortly before 18:00 BST on 23 July 2024, the officer had begun his short walk home from Brompton Barracks when his journey was interrupted by Esan asking if he could borrow his mobile phone as he sought assistance for his broken-down moped.

Three minutes later, Teeton had been stabbed in an assault which only halted briefly when his wife rushed from their home a few metres away and pushed off Esan as he lunged at her husband.

"I was fortunate to have survived," Teeton told the BBC.

The judge, Mr Justice Picken, said during his sentencing remarks: "The horror of the attack was unimaginable."

He told Esan he would be detained in hospital as long as necessary.

Before the attack, Esan had carried out online searches for knives, and about a terrorist attack that happened in West Africa, as well as TikTok videos of knife attacks in other countries.

He had also searched for information on "Woolwich soldier murdered", which was a reference to the attack on Lee Rigby in 2013, the court heard.

Forensic psychiatrists had told the court it was more likely that Esan set out to stab a soldier but that the main driver of his actions was psychosis.

But Mr Justice Picken said: "The attack on Mr Teeton was targeted and deliberate."

Turning to Esan he said: "You were looking for a soldier with the intention that that soldier should die, as underlined by the fact you had looked up the killing of Lee Rigby on the internet."

Teeton's wife Eileen, told the court how she ran from the couple's home and "charged" at the assailant as the attack unfolded, but Esan "followed her with his eyes".

But the attacker then turned back to the soldier, she said, "at which point, to my horror, I realised it was my husband lying there".

She added: "Once he [Esan] had stopped continuing to attack Mark and got on his moped and left, my next reaction was just to get Mark as much help as I could."

With Teeton drifting in and out of consciousness, guards from the nearby barracks arrived as local residents appeared on the scene, alongside police and paramedics.

Teeton was driven by ambulance to Kings College Hospital in London to undergo life-saving emergency surgery, and Eileen followed "not knowing if her husband was alive".

Teeton said after the sentencing that Esan's life imprisonment reflected the "premeditation and planning involved in the attack against myself, an officer wearing British military uniform".

He added: "Knife attacks do not just impact the victim, they impact the families and communities where attacks occur.

"We feel the pain caused by every knife attack that we see on the news, and our thoughts will always be with those affected".

Prior to the attack Teeton, a soldier for 26 years, had been on four tours, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said the quick response from paramedics who arrived via the air ambulance helped save his life.

"The immediate first aid they did as well as all the other locals who administered first aid applying basic principles absolutely saved me", he said.

After three weeks in hospital, Teeton returned to his family to find the military had moved their home to a more private area.

He attended a rehabilitation centre for injured military personnel near Loughborough for five weeks, before returning to work full-time in January 2025.

Esan pleaded guilty to attempted murder in January, after the case had been delayed several times amid concerns over his mental health.

He had made several unsuccessful attempts to join the British Army in the years before his attack, with his first application in 2020.

That same year, he had been referred to mental health services as he appeared to be mentally unwell and reported hearing voices.

Eileen, who sings in a military wives choir, said the couple welcomed Esan's guilty plea.

"For us not having to relive the ordeal through a trial and subject poor jurors to our horrendous ordeal, there was a massive relief that he had, in our minds, done the right thing and pleaded guilty to his crimes," she said.