Five weeks ago, Ben Grossnass, a longtime volunteer with Shomrim North West London community patrol, was woken by a phone call in the early hours. By the time he arrived at the scene, four Jewish volunteer ambulances had been torched.
On Wednesday this week, the phone rang again at 11.20am. A panicked caller reported a man running along Golders Green Road and Highfield Avenue with a knife, chasing people and stabbing them. Within a minute, a Shomrim volunteer was on the scene. He used his car to block the attacker, slowing him down before officers arrived and, alongside the police, apprehended him.