Jamal Walker-Bailey is due to be sentenced next week
11:57, 01 Aug 2025Updated 12:09, 01 Aug 2025
Police responding in Whalley Range in January(Image: Submitted)
A rampaging knifeman attacked innocent people in the streets after staying up for days and ‘watching nothing but videos’ about the Israel and Palestine conflict.
Jamal Walker-Bailey left his home in Whalley Range armed with a machete, before attacking two complete strangers.
He hit a cyclist over the head with the weapon, before targeting a commuter walking home, punching him to the ground and kicking him on the floor.
The cyclist was protected by his helmet, while the walker avoided serious injury. Walker-Bailey, 26, then hit moving cars with the machete before being Tasered and detained.
After being arrested, Walker-Bailey told police officers that he’d been ‘awake for five days without sleeping, watching nothing but videos of the Israel Palestine conflict’.
In the days prior to the shocking attack, on January 23 this year, Walker-Bailey had also accessed YouTube videos about Axel Rudakubana, who a few days earlier had admitted murdering three girls in Southport and injuring ten others.
Sign up to the MEN Court newsletter here
Now, he has been found guilty of two charges following a trial at Manchester Crown Court.
Walker-Bailey was convicted of two counts of attempting to inflict grievous bodily harm, and acquitted of assaulting an emergency worker.
‘He attacked 2 strangers who happened to be passing by’
Prosecutors told how Walker-Bailey left his home on Burford Road in Whalley Range just before 7.30pm, armed with a red bladed machete.
“He attacked two complete strangers who happened to be passing by,” prosecutor Emma Gargitter said. The first was a cyclist named Francois Ladam.
He recalled that Walker-Bailey approached him in the middle of the road as he was cycling, ‘saying something about Israel’. He had difficulty remembering what happened but his bike ended up on the floor and he was hit over the head, being protected by his helmet which had a crack through the plastic.
A passing motorist saw Mr Ladam being hit over the head ‘multiple times’, jurors heard. As he tried to run away, the driver let him into her car. He was left in shock and suffered pain but was not seriously hurt.
Prosecutors said that Walker-Bailey then attacked Jonathan Adams, who was walking home. Walker-Bailey, who appeared ‘agitated’, asked him: “Do you know Israel?”
He then asked if he ‘knew what Israel was doing to children’. Ms Gargitter said: “Mr Adams told him that he did, that it was awful. Suddenly he too was being attacked.”
Jurors were told that he was punched to the ground and kicked in the head while on the ground. As he stood up and shouted for help, a passing motorist let Mr Adams into her car and they left the scene.
Join our Court and Crime WhatsApp group HERE
He suffered two black eyes and a chipped tooth, the prosecution said. Walker-Bailey then began smashing windows and wing mirrors of moving vehicles, as well as at least one parked vehicle.
“The defendant’s rampage came to an end when the police attended in response to multiple 999 calls, approximately ten minutes after it had begun with the attack on Francois Ladam,” Ms Gargitter said.
Walker-Bailey used the machete to smash the window of a police car, jurors heard. He was Tasered and arrested but refused to co-operate, being described as ‘irate, aggressive and volatile’.
‘Been awake for five days without sleeping’
After being placed in custody, the defendant said that he had been ‘awake for five days without sleeping, watching nothing but videos of the Israel Palestine conflict’. On January 21, he accessed a number of YouTube videos concerning the case of Axel Rudakubana, who had appeared in court the day before to plead guilty to murdering three girls and injuring ten others.
A few hours before leaving his home armed with a machete, he accessed another video about Rudakubana, who was sentenced that day. Giving evidence in his defence, Walker-Bailey told jurors that he could not remember the day of the attacks, and could only recall ‘smoking a joint’ before ‘waking up in police custody’.
He said that he had been ‘stressed’ and ‘feeling wrecked’ as he had been seeing images in his head of the people affected by the conflict in Gaza. When asked why he had shared videos about Southport killer Axel Rudakubana the night before the attacks, he said: “I don’t agree with what he did at all. I don’t agree with innocent people being killed.
“He is a scumbag for that. He killed three little girls and then there were riots against Muslims, and he wasn’t Muslim. I felt like if the British public were having an outcry over him – that’s right as he’s a scumbag – they could have the same reaction to Palestine.”
About the attacks themselves, he said: “There was no purpose for my actions, it would not have achieved anything. My intentions are not to hurt people. My intentions are to help people.”
Walker-Bailey, of Burford Road, is due to be sentenced next week.