Three men have been arrested after a young man was stabbed in the head. The attack took place in Harwich, Essex in the early hours on Sunday morning. The thee have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. The victim James Johnson, 20, is now fighting for his life at a London hospital. The knife was left embedded in his head, after the handle broke off during the attack.

The attack took place around 02:00 hrs on Sunday 06/05/2012 in Mill Lane, Harwich. Three local villains aged 22, 23 and 34, are now being held in custody following the stabbing. James Johnson is now in a critical but stable condition, police have said. The blade of the knife is being examined, and police are asking members of the public to look out for the knife handle which they think was discarded near the scene.

Det Chief Insp Simon Parkes, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, is taking charge of the investigation. The victim is lucky to be alive after being stabbed in the head. Doctors will be monitoring him closely for signs of brain damage, though in theory he could make a full recovery. The force needed to embed a blade in the head is quite substantial, the skull is surprisingly strong though the back of the head is often less well protected. Of course there is no definite rule, and this varies from person to person.

The law does suggest that if a knife or weapon is used, even if by just one person in a group, the whole group can be criminally liable for the use of the weapon. Police will be carefully questioning those arrested, to see who was aware of the knife, and if there is criminal responsibility for all those present at the attack. One thing is for sure, whoever did this must be quite a dangerous individual.

Thoughts should go out to the victims family and friends. The exact circumstances relating to the incident should be known in due course, and some kind of confrontation between the victim and his attackers is quite probably. In this case I would suspect he was known to his attackers, and may even have been friends with them. The fact that police made the arrests so soon suggests that it was an unplanned attack, and there may be a number of witnesses. Many people are now taking to wearing armoured baseball caps and other armoured hats to protect from head injuries, which are mainly blunt trauma related.

Do you know what happened in Harwich on Saturday/Sunday night? Is Harwich a safe place to live, or a crime ridden hell-hole? Comments open.