A worried Edinburgh woman 'pretended to be on the phone' after noticing a suspicious group, minutes before a man was stabbed.
The local, who wants to go by her first name Vera, was returning home at around 10.50pm on Tuesday evening when she saw three men wearing tracksuits on Balfour Place in Leith, seemingly trying to break into a car.
In order to avoid the men, she pretended to be on the phone, quietly narrating the incident to herself as she managed to get back to her house.
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Speaking to Edinburgh Live, she said:
“Oh my god, I can’t believe I passed them. I was actually pretending to be on the phone and I have a voicemail of what I saw. It looked like they were trying to break into a van.”
This comes as a 25-year-old man was stabbed late last night by two men.
Around 11pm last night, two men approached a car from Pilrig Park and started speaking to a man inside. They then attacked the 25-year-old occupant of the vehicle, stabbed him and then ran off.
The man was taken to hospital and his condition has since been described as stable.
This morning, officers have been carrying out door to door enquiries to appeal for witnesses and checking CCTV to gather more evidence.
Speaking to a local resident, who was interviewed by the police, he said:
“I didn’t really see anything last night- all we heard was a dog barking really loudly but the police this morning told us that it was likely one of their police dogs.
“The police came around this morning to appeal to us and see if we saw anything. They basically just asked us if we had seen anything in a few different ways and gave us a form to fill in.
“But really, all we heard was the police themselves getting involved.”
Detective Inspector Kevin Tait said:
“A young man has been stabbed in what we believe to be a targeted attack. I am appealing to anyone who was in the Pilrig Park and Balfour Place area, around the time of the incident to get in touch with us.
“Did you notice the two men in the street, did you see the car, any small piece of information could prove relevant to our enquiries. I would also ask motorists who were driving in the area around that time to check their footage as it could have captured images which could help us in locating the two men responsible for this attack.”
