A man charged with attempted murder following a Carlisle stabbing which left his victim critically hurt has admitted a lesser charge, and will be sentenced along with three other people later this year.
Police were called to Warwick Square in the city at 9.44pm on February 6 amid reports of an altercation involving three males.
A 38-year-old man injured in the incident was taken to hospital with a stab wound and described at the time as being in a “critical but stable” condition.
At Carlisle Crown Court today, Viorel Iulian Pricope denied a charge of attempted murder but admitted causing Marcin Lichaczewski grievous bodily harm with intent to do so.
At a previous magistrates’ court hearing, it was revealed the victim sustained a wound approximately 10-15cm in length which cut through his liver, “extending upwards to the lining of his heart”.
Pricope, aged 24, also admitted assaulting two other people by beating, illegal possession of a kitchen knife in public at Warwick Square, and doing an act tending and intended to perverted the course of public justice: putting blood-stained clothing into a washing machine and changing into new garments.
Along with two other men — 25-year-old Costel Mihaita Puiu and Fernando Andrei Haliga, 24 — Pricope also pleaded guilty to an affray committed on the same date.
Haliga, of St Nicholas Street, Carlisle, further admitted illegal possession of a baseball bat in public, and a perverting the course of public justice charge having loaned Pricope shoes and clothing in the aftermath of the stabbing.
Judge Neil Flewitt QC adjourned the case for the preparation of probation service pre-sentence reports, Pricope’s addressing the issue the likely danger he presents to the public of committing future serious offences.
Haliga, Pricope and Puiu, both of Warwick Square, Carlisle, are due to be sentenced on September 16.
A fourth defendant will also be sentenced on that day. Simone Yasmin Troughear, aged 30, of Flower Street, Carlisle, also admits doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice, on February 7, by providing a false statement and false verbal representations. She was granted bail in the meantime.
*Judge Flewitt ordered the attempted murder charge to lie on the court file after the prosecution confirmed they accepted Pricope’s pleas.
