Man stabbed in the throat with 12-inch blade, court hears (From Daily Echo)

Man stabbed in the throat with 12-inch blade, court hears

6:02pm Wednesday 1st July 2009 in

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A MAN was allegedly murdered in a vicious and frenzied knife attack following an argument at a Southampton house party, a court heard.

Eyewitnesses told how Tony Wilkinson stabbed Neil Hampson – known by friends as “Bones” – in the throat with a 12-inch blade as terrified partygoers screamed in panic.

The pair then fell to the hallway floor of Wilkinson’s girlfriend’s flat, where the 28-year-old delivered “rapid blows in quick succession” into Mr Hampson’s body.

Winchester Crown Court heard how the 32-year-old victim, of Magnolia Road, Merry Oak, later collapsed in the kitchen of the flat in Havre Towers, Weston.

He was taken to Southampton General Hospital where he died of multiple stab wounds around 90 minutes later.

In his opening speech at Wilkinson’s murder trial, prosecutor Oba Nsugbe QC said: “There was thumping and banging which could be heard by those in the living room and the kitchen.

There was the sound of glass smashing and people screaming in fear and panic.

“In the course of that struggle this defendant tipped the odds decisively in his favour by pulling a knife which he used viciously and determinedly to end the life of the victim.

“He must have done so striking rapid blows in quick succession with a knife which in the most part was hidden from view.”

Minutes later Wilkinson, of Merrow Avenue, Poole, fled down the stairs from the 12th floor property, leaving a trail of blood in the stairwell.

He has admitted to then pulling the blade on someone on the street outside before stealing a car from Barnfield Road and fleeing to Bournemouth, said Mr Nsugbe QC.

The trial heard a group of partygoers had left the flat shortly after Mr Hampson collapsed.

James Scobie, defending, said one of this group, Kane Lendon, had changed his top after the stabbing.

He said: “The reason he changed his top was because he was involved in the fight. Since this incident there has been a conspiracy of protection by those, particularly who left, to blame somebody [Wilkinson] for something he did not do.”

Mr Hampson was one of 20 people who had gone back to the flat of Isla Jarvis following the 21st birthday party of her friend Danielle Gibbons on Friday, November 2, 2007.

Wilkinson, who denies murder, had been in a relationship with Miss Jarvis for about three weeks prior to the incident.

Proceeding.