Three-year-old girl beheaded with meat cleaver in ‘random’ attack in broad daylight

A THREE-year-old girl has been decapitated in a shocking ‘random’ attack outside a subway station in broad daylight.

The toddler was riding her bicycle when a man approached, pulled out a meat cleaver and attacked her in front of her mother and grandmother.

The man was tackled by passers-by and the police rushed to the gruesome scene which took place outside a subway station before midday on Monday.

The little girl’s mother said she initially thought the man was going to help her cycle up the hill in Taiwan's capital Taipei.

Speaking to reporters, the child's distraught parent said: "When it happened, I was just one metre away from her.

"I saw the man come up to my daughter and thought he was helping her, but when I approached them I saw the man hacking at my daughter’s neck.

"The first thing I did was grab hold of the man, but I wasn’t able to stop him, all I could do was hold him and stop him from escaping, while calling for help."

The man has been identified as Wang, 33, by local media. TV footage showed an angry crowd gathered outside the police station where the man was being questioned.

Some in the crowd were brandishing baseball bats in apparent preparation for an attack on the suspect.

Wang had an arrest record for drug crimes and had been treated for mental illness, according to a local government-run news agency.

His father said he lived at home and was unemployed.