A knifeman who tried to kill a father-of-three in Finsbury Park was out on bail for possessing a knife when he carried out the attack, the Old Bailey has heard.

During a sentencing hearing held yesterday - Monday, January 10 - it was also revealed that Kenneth Solomon-Ngua was breaching bail conditions by being in the area where he attacked the victim.

The 20-year-old repeatedly stabbed the victim - who was on his way to pick up his children - in broad daylight near to Manor House tube station on December 1 2018.

He was hospitalised for two weeks after suffering stab wounds to his chest, jaw and neck and a collapsed lung.

Solomon-Ngua - of Holly Park - was found guilty of attempted murder by a jury on November 23, and was handed a 15-year jail term yesterday.

He denied attempted murder but had pleaded guilty to GBH part-way through the trial.

Sentencing, the Common Serjeant of London, Judge Richard Leon Marks QC, recalled that a then 17-year-old Solomon-Ngua had been in a café near the tube station.

After cadging a cigarette outside, he went to the bus stop to get a light, where he came across the victim who was waiting for a bus so he could travel to collect his children from school.

Judge Marks said: "You should not have been there, because at the time you were on bail in respect of other serious allegations and a condition of your bail was not to be in that area.

"You got in your head entirely wrongly that he [the victim] was a police officer, and you challenged him about this several times.

"He denied it because he was in no way connected with the police, and he accepted in evidence he became annoyed - although not angry."

He continued: "At this time you had in your waist band a large knife and the in the course of your trial you were to draw a diagram of it, from which it was apparent it must have been nine or 10 inches long.

"You were to claim in evidence that he became aggressive and you were led to believe he had a weapon, but I have absolutely no doubt he did not, and that nothing he said or did could have led you to that conclusion."

The victim was stabbed multiple times, with a 14.8cm deep wound to his chest which narrowly missed his diaphragm and heart.

A neck wound went within 2.5cm from the carotid artery as well as from the internal jugular vein and the trachea.

The victim also suffered a punctured lung and two fractured ribs.

"Injuries to any of these could have been life threatening," said Judge Marks.

"That you didn't kill him in the course of this attack is a matter of pure good fortune."

In an impact statement written three years after the attack, the victim described how he is now a recluse afraid to leave his home, adding that he was told in hospital that he nearly died.

The victim wrote: "I have no social life, I don't go out, I don't see my children, I only have contact with my elderly mother. I cannot work, I have no friends or colleagues who I can spend time with."

Handing Solomon-Ngua the lengthy term, Judge Marks concluded: "The psychological scars run deep.

"As to your history of carrying knives you were to tell the jury that earlier in 2018 you'd been stabbed and two of your friends had been killed in stabbing incidents, and it was in response to those incidents that you had thereafter habitually carried a knife.

"This case demonstrates the stupidity and the wickedness of doing this because as this court knows too well, this leads time and time again to the to the use of knives with terrible consequences, which is exactly what happened here."