Scholar Caged For Plastic Bag And Knife Attack On Sleeping Wife

A suicidal college lecturer depressed by his career and a £25,000 credit card debt was jailed for five-and-a-half years today for pulling a plastic carrier bag over his sleeping wife’s head while armed with a knife.

Academic Joe Mancini, 52, of Vicarage Gardens, East Sheen, South-West London – a finance guru and expert in private equity and venture capital – had just returned to the family home near Richmond Park after teaching at Paris’s International School of Business.

As their twin five year-old sons slept in another bedroom Mancini got up at 4am and tried to force the bag over his 44 year-old wife's head while holding an eight-inch kitchen knife.

“She believed she was fighting for her life,” Judge Susan Tapping told Mancini at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court (pictured). “It is only your wife’s determined struggles to save herself that prevented worse.”

Mancini pleaded guilty to attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, with intent, on June 11, last year. The original charge of attempted murder was allowed to lie on the file.

Mancini, a double masters degree holder in molecular medicine and bioinformatics, studied at University College London, Imperial College London and Schiller International University, London, where his wife was also a student.

“Having equipped himself with the best qualifications no job materialises,” said Mr. Sailesh Mehta. “He had suicidal thoughts and had visited more than one train station contemplating taking his life.

“Separation from his family had a negative effect on him,” added Mr. Mehta, explaining Mancini had returned a week earlier from his Paris flat. “He puts his family and his job at the centre of his life.”

Judge Tapping told the defendant: “You attacked your wife in her bed. You tried to pull a plastic carrier bag over her head.

“You pulled it down to eye level and she fought, fearing suffocation. She pleaded with you not to do it.

“You then turned to your second weapon, the knife and she had defence wounds on both hands where she grabbed hold of the blade to prevent you stabbing her.

The couple had enjoyed an untroubled twenty-year relationship up until the attack.

She fled downstairs and the defendant did not pursue her, even throwing down the phone so she could dial 999.

“It seems you came to your senses and you told her to call the police,” Judge Tapping told the first-time offender.

“There had been a build-up of stress in your life. You are a highly-educated man, but your inability to hold down a full-time job brought financial pressures.

“I regard these offences as very serious. You attacked your wife when she was vulnerable and armed yourself with two different weapons.

“You took out all your problems on your wife and she is to divorce you.”

The judge also granted a restraining order against Mancini, which will begin on his release and last until September 2022.