A REVELLER who left a Southampton house party just minutes after a man was fatally stabbed has denied being part of a cover-up.

Danielle Gibbon was giving evidence at the murder trial of Tony Wilkinson, who is accused of stabbing Neil Hampson in the throat with a 12in blade at Havre Towers in Weston.

Miss Gibbon, her boyfriend Kane Lendon and friend Lance Nicholas had left Havre Towers just minutes after the stabbing, Winchester Crown Court heard.

James Scobie, defending, asked the 22-year-old if she was part of a cover-up to protect her partner.

“The whole scenario is ridiculous,” she said. “It’s just his [Wilkinson’s] way of getting out of the foolish act that he did.

“I know Kane, I’ve known Kane for five years, I’ve got a baby with him now, never would he be such a scumbag as to do something like that.”

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She also denied a suggestion by Mr Scobie that a jumper seen in the hands of her friend Mr Nicholas – when he was leaving the International Way tower block – was concealing a weapon.

Miss Gibbon said that after her 21st birthday celebrations on Friday, November 2, 2007, about 20 people had gone to the flat of Wilkinson’s girlfriend, Isla Jarvis.

She admitted snorting a line of cocaine and seeing others doing so in the kitchen and living room.

She told the court she had heard glass smashing before turning around to find Wilkinson and Mr Hampson fighting.

She added that after the two had been pulled apart, Wilkinson threatened his girlfriend at the time, Miss Jarvis, and demanded she get his coat.

Miss Gibbon said: “He grabbed Isla and threw her against the wall and pulled from his waist a large knife, a machete-type knife, curved at the end, probably about ten inches.”

She then went into the kitchen to find Mr Hampson, 32, of Magnolia Road, Merry Oak, “in a bit of a daze” and “looking exhausted”.

She said: “Neil was stood in the kitchen and people were shouting ‘he’s been stabbed, he’s been stabbed’.”

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

Wilkinson, 28, of Merrow Avenue, Poole, denies murdering Mr Hampson.

He admitted, in the aftermath of the incident, charges of possessing an offensive weapon in a public place, burglary, theft of a car and criminal damage to that vehicle.

Proceeding.