A former GCHQ worker who attempted to murder a US spy in a terrorist attack because of a grudge against the Secret Services has been jailed for life.
Joshua Bowles, 29, ambushed the woman outside a leisure centre in Cheltenham, stabbing her three times in a determined pursuit through the car park and into the reception area.
The Old Bailey heard Bowles had plotted the attack after failing to secure a permanent job at GCHQ, the listening post for Britain’s intelligence community.
He stalked the victim online, found out she was due to play netball on the evening of the attack, on March 9, and lay in wait while armed with two knives.
Bowles, dubbed a “terrorist” by the prosecution, had been living the life of an ‘incel’ while unemployed, unable to find a girlfriend, and depressed, the court heard.
Passing sentence on Monday, Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb concluded Bowles had carried out a politically-motivated stabbing which amounted to a terrorist attack.
"This was not a random act of serious violence, you were not a mugger attacking a stranger", she said.
"The court can't avoid the conclusion that a significant part of your motivation in the planning and carrying out of the attack was that your actions would have an adverse impact on the intelligence communities of the UK and US."
She said Bowles' confessions moments after the stabbing - complaining of the "murky waters" within the secret services, criticising the "ethics" of US and GCHQ spy activities, and his view that he was "disgusted" with their work - show the motive for the stabbing.
He harboured "deep disaffection with society and a desire to challenge authority", as well as "anger" towards women, said the judge, who also took into account his diagnosis of Asperger's and a depressive disorder.
Bowles was jailed for life and must serve at least 13 years in prison before being considered for release.
The court heard details of a frantic attack by Bowles as he repeatedly swung the knife and punches at the woman, while fending off the attempts of the victim’s friend and a passerby to intervene.
“It felt like he hated me”, said the woman. “His focus was me.”
After the attack, Bowles told an eyewitness: “I’ve tried to kill her. I can’t believe this”, before declaring: “I make a pretty sh*t terrorist, don’t I?”.
Prosecutor Duncan Penny KC told the court investigators found extensive evidence of Bowles tracking the woman’s movements before the stabbing, including downloading her netball schedule, as well as suggestions hehad considered attacking two other GCHQ staffers.
After the stabbing, Bowles declared “all government institutions are corrupt”and told an eye witness that he used to work with the victim at GCHQ, the court heard.
Bowles told an eyewitness he could not “handle the murky waters of ethics and whether they are doing the right thing and the power that the American NSA have and the things they do”.
He later admitted selecting the victim – referred to in court as 99230 – because of her job, decided to target an American spy as a “symbolictarget” for the wider intelligence community, and declared himself “disgustedby the manner in which they gather information and use things against people”.
Mr Penny told the court: “This case involves a premeditated, targeted, and vicious attack on an unarmed woman. That woman was a United States government employee working in the United Kingdom; she was attacked by a man who was carrying two knives and she was stabbed three times outside and in the reception area of a leisure centre in Cheltenham.
“The attack which the perpetrator launched was intended to be lethal; that the helpless victim survived it was mere happenstance. Her selection as the target for this attack was entirely and solely associated with her role as a USgovernment employee in the National Security Agency of the United States.
“The perpetrator was this defendant, Joshua Bowles, a British former employee at GCHQ, who when speaking in the aftermath of the attack described himself as a ‘terrorist’.”
CCTV footage caught the moment the victim and her friend left theleisure centre while being followed by Bowles, who had been lying in wait withtwo knives in a rucksack.
The victim heard a male voice say “excuse me” and she was then punched repeatedly in the face.
She assumed she was being mugged and saw the gleam of the knife, "kicking, punching and screaming as much as she could" in a bid tofend off the attack.
As the woman's friend hit Bowles with her bag, a bystander Alex Fuentes, who was on his way to play football, also intervened and was punched in the face.
The two women ran back into the leisure centre where a second attack unfolded.
"CCTV footage shows the defendant holding a knife and lunging towards 99230, who was trying to back away", said Mr Penny.
Steve Bunn, another visitor to the leisure centre, saw blood flowing from the woman’s mouth and down her chin and throat.
“He was on her, immediately, grabbed her and was moving around in such a way it was obvious he was trying to hit her or hurt her, he was strikingat her.
“It looked like he was throwing punches or attacking her with punches.”
Mr Bunn intervened to stop the attack, and described how Bowles' “frenzied aggression” instantly faded away when the women fled.
While waiting for police, the attacker told Mr Bunn that he would understand what he had done if he knew what they did at GCHQ.
In a victim impact statement, the woman said she did not know who Bowles was until after the attack, and was later "devastated" to learn they had worked in the same office.
She described dramatic changes to her physical appearance, lasting scars, and the “huge emotional toll” and her and her family.
She called the attack a “nightmarish situation”, adding: “I was hunted by him and I don’t know why.”
And she added that she goes out less now, and said: “I look in the hands of every man to see if he is holding a weapon.”
She suffered wounds to her abdomen, liver, leg, and chest, and was rushed to hospital for treatment in intensive care after the stabbing.
“This attack has had a profound effect on me and it’s utterly and completely changed my life", she said.
“I’ve spend a week in hospital after having emergency surgery. Ihad never had surgery before in my life and it was very frightening.
“Months later, my wounds are still sore. I instinctively cover my abdomen to protect it. My scars bother me.
“Following the attack I went from being in the best shape I had ever been to being the weakest I have ever been.”
Bowles, who lives in Cheltenham, told investigators that he had been suffering depression.
He told the court he feels "regret, remorse, and shame"for the attack, which he struggles to explain and now realises was fuelled by"petty and embarrassing" reasons.
He pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey in August to attempted murder and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The court heard he became a computer programmer after sufferingsocial isolation at school, and turned against GCHQ after failing to secure apermanent job.
He was described as leading a "doomer" and "incel" lifestyle, as the court heard he struggled to find a girlfriend and was unemployed for a lengthy period of time.
Nick Price, Head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter TerrorismDivision, said: “This extremely violent attack against two innocent people wascompletely unprovoked.
“It is right that those who commit violent crimes like this should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law to protect the public, and our thoughts continue to be with the victims and their families.”
