Police Constable William Izzard (133H) was walking his beat on Ratcliffe Highway on the 5 August 1866 when he heard raised voices. It was late at night and this was not uncommon in such a rowdy and notorious area. He moved towards the disturbance and found a small group of ‘foreign sailors’ quarrelling in the street.

PC Izzard approached the group and, since they were making a great deal of noise and disturbing the peace he asked them to disperse. No one seemed to be listening to him and one man in particular seemed very agitated so he lightly tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. The man turned around and the policemen indicated that he should ‘go home and sleep’.

As the man moved off another one stepped forward and drew a long bladed knife which he thrust at the copper. Fortunately PC Izzard stepped back quickly, avoiding the attack. As he did so he pulled out his truncheon (or ‘stick’ as it was described in the report) and used it to ward off more attacks from the sailor.

Meanwhile another unconnected man had seen what was going on. Charles McCarthy was a stevedore who worked on the docks and he noticed a ‘a short stout man’ come up behind the constable holding a knife. McCarthy shouted a warning to Izzard but it was too late; the man (an Italian sailor named Ferato Lorenzo) had caught his victim off guard and stabbed him in the belly.

The policeman fell to the ground with blood pouring from the wound as the sailors scattered. McCarthy set off in pursuit of Lorenzo, catching him and hauling him to the floor. Amazingly PC Izzard picked himself up and helped secure the prisoner with the help of a fellow officer (H56) who came running from a nearby street.

The Italian sailor, who was much the worse for drink, was presented at the Thames Police Court charged with violent assault. He offered no real defence and was fully committed to trial by the magistrate, Mr Partridge. The policeman appeared in court but was still suffering from his injuries even though the attack had taken place over two weeks earlier. He had lost a lot of blood and was unable to return to duty. He had been examined by the H Division surgeon, George Bagster Phillips who was to go on to achieve some kind of fame as the police doctor who investigated the Ripper murders in 1888.

In the end Lorenzo took his trial at Old Bailey on the 13th August 1866 where he was found guilty of felonious wounding and sent to prison for 12 months at hard labour. PC Izzard was lucky; the surgeon told the Old Bailey courtroom that the knife had entered his abdomen, ‘penetrating through the muscles to the peritoneum,’ but had not reached his bowels. He survived; had he not the Italian may well have found himself facing a charge of murder with the very real prospect of being executed if convicted – so Ferato was also ‘un uomo fortunato’.

[from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, Sunday, August 19, 1866]