A MAN accused of the murder of his friend has told a court how he had acted in self-defence after he was threatened.

Adam Dominiak took to the witness box this morning and told jurors how Szymon Kalita, the man he is accused of murdering, had got hold of a knife and told him he was going to kill him after an argument about turning down loud music escalated.

Prosecutors allege that after taking a cocktail of drink and drugs Dominiak, 41, used weapons to inflict “considerable violence over a prolonged period” to kill Mr Kalita before finally attempting to cut his head off with a blunt knife at his flat in Malmesbury Road, Shirley, Southampton.

Winchester Crown Court has heard how Szymon Kalita died from multiple blunt force injuries to his head, neck and chest Jurors heard how the pair had walked home from a party on the morning on May 4 last year.

They had been living together for about two weeks and there was an arrangement for Mr Kalita to pay rent, Dominiak said.

The court heard he had been at the party from Friday evening to the Monday morning when the vodka ran out.

Speaking through an interpreter, Dominiak said he had not had any sleep during that time and agreed that he had been drinking for 48 hours or more.

He said when back at his flat he was heavily drunk and thought his tenant was too.

Dominiak said he remembered that the music was very loud.

“It was the early hours and I thought that he should turn it down,” he said.

“He didn’t want to turn it down.”

Dominiak said they argued and started to shout at each other in the kitchen.

When Mr Kalita refused to turn the music down he then told him to get out of his house.

“I turned with the intention to go to my room and the next moment I felt a blow on the back of my head,” said Dominiak.

“I’m not sure whether it was a punch or an open hand.”

He said he fell to the floor as a result and Mr Kalita had “grabbed a knife off the table at that moment”.

He said: “When I was lying on the floor I started to cry because I saw him taking the knife off the table.

“He was threatening to kill me with it.

Dominiak continued: “He was shouting he would kill me, he would do me.”

Asked if he thought Mr Kalita meant it, he said yes, adding “because at the time I was crying I begged him to stop.

“He raised his voice more and more. He became more and more confident.”

Asked what happened next he said: “I realised that he did intend to kill me and I decided to defend myself.”

He said he took a hammer from a chest of drawers and “just hit randomly”. Dominiak denied that the pair had argued on the way back to his flat, saying “it was just a conversation of two drunk people”.

Dominiak denies murder, claiming self-defence, that he was too intoxicated to intend to kill and that he lost control due to fear of serious violence.

Proceeding.