A man who may have been the killer in the Nottingham attacks tried to break into a homeless hostel via an open window, according to a trustee of the charity that runs the hostel.
Seely Hirst House, a residential care home for homeless people, is round the corner from Magdala tennis club, 30 seconds’ walk from where school caretaker Ian Coates was stabbed to death on Tuesday morning.
Police tape still cordoned off part of the hostel on Wednesday lunchtime as detectives continued to piece together the movements of the alleged attacker.
Alex Pridmore, a trustee of All Saints Homeless Shelter, which runs the home, said: “The man tried to climb through a ground floor bay window, which was open, and the resident of that room woke up and rushed to the window to close it. The resident then alerted security.”
Pridmore added: “The intruder was not known to us.”
He said the resident was “shaken” but not physically harmed, and the man then ran off. The home has provided CCTV footage to police.
The resident into whose room the alleged attacker tried to climb said the incident happened about 5.15am. Coates was found dead nearby at about 5.30am.
The resident said: “I was awake from 4.15am because I have chronic COPD and can’t breathe, so was watching TV when a black guy tried to climb in through the window. I pushed him away. He went away and then came back and tried to smash the window. No one is getting into my yard.”
Police believe the killer stole Coates’s van and then drove it to the city centre, where he deliberately rammed three people waiting for a bus.
Nottinghamshire police confirmed on Wednesday that a man matching the alleged killer’s description attempted to break into the property on Mapperley Road, near the junction with Magdala Road. The incident happened sometime after 4am, when the two students were stabbed on Ilkeston Road, two miles away.
The force said that the attempted break-in was not reported to police at the time but that subsequent investigations revealed “that a man matching the description of the suspect had attempted to gain entry to a supported living complex in Mapperley Road but had been denied entry”.
