SHOPPERS and shop staff looked on in horror as a teenager slit his throat and collapsed in a pool of blood after stabbing a pensioner.

The 18-year-old, who has since been sectioned, stabbed the 69-year-old in the toilets of The Mall while the Walthamstow High Street centre was full of shoppers.

He stabbed the older man just before 3pm before running out and down the stairs, slashing his wrists and cutting his throat along the way.

Stunned shop workers saw him collapse at the bottom of the stairs.

They told of how he noticed security guards coming towards him and got up and stumbled towards the High Street entrance of the centre, collapsing again outside Rosebys in a pool of blood.

Amjad Ali, 21, a shop assistant at nearby Superdrug, said: "The guy came down the stairs. He was dripping with blood, he was screaming.

"We thought we were going to get stabbed. We thought there was a madman running around.

"There were kids running around and screaming when they saw the blood."

He described the youth brandishing a seven-inch hunter's knife while running past a group of 14-year-old schoolchildren on work experience.

A female colleague added: "They were clinging on to me and crying.

"They saw the blood and some of them were feeling faint."

The centre was evacuated and shops were closed until Saturday morning.

Several people working there said they were apprehensive about coming back to work.

Muhammed Sufyan, assistant manager of KFC, said he and his staff were scared when he saw the older man had knife wounds in his neck and his back.

Both men were airlifted to hospital and treated.

The older man has been released but the 18-year-old remains in hospital under the Mental Health Act.

A 25-year-old cleaner who tried to help suffered minor head injuries but was treated at the scene.

This week The Mall, who own Selborne Walk Shopping Centre, were placed at number 59 in the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies to Work For.

Staff said the security guard had reacted very quickly.

However the company refused to comment.

Shopkeepers and market traders say that they are continually plagued by petty crime.

A incident this week saw £400 in cash stolen from a woman's handbag.

The money was snatched from a shopper's bag in Unze shoe shop, in The Mall Walthamstow, right next to where a man brandishing a knife collapsed in a pool of his own blood just days before.

Although Friday's stabbing came as a shock for most, shopkeepers and market stall holders say that incidents of shoplifting, pick pocketing, illegal hawking and threatening behaviour are rife.

Mick Matthews, 57, who has run a bedding and toiletries stall in Walthamstow Market for the last 17 years, said customers had been driven away by "big time pickpocketers and DVD sellers".

He added: "Old dears come up to the stall and they find their purse is gone."

Shopkeeper Emma Moorhead, 27, agreed. She said many victims had their bag straps slashed with knives.

Other traders told the Guardian that shoppers were conned by card sharks or intimidated by gangs who flooded the market and ran around shouting in a threatening manner.

Newsagent Hamed Arbi, 39, said: "It's like a ghost town out there after 6.30pm. It's really scary.

Last week a lady was hit in the head with a hammer outside my shop."

Tarik Mehmet, 21, from Gamestation, said most of the trouble came from youngsters.

He said: "I think there's a lack of discipline. If I did something back in the day I was given a smack in the face. I soon learnt."