Two brothers have vividly recalled seeing their good friend Ryan Kirkpatrick fatally stabbed, with one telling a jury how he used a waistcoat to put pressure on his wound.
Owen and Shae Kenyon had attended a christening with pal Mr Kirkpatrick in Wreay, near Carlisle, on Saturday, September 18.
All were at Carlyle’s Court, off Fisher Street, when an initial incident involving Mr Kirkpatrick and another man, Kane Hull, occurred in the courtyard at around 8-30pm.
Around 15 minutes later, Carlisle Crown Court has heard, there was a second incident.
Giving evidence to a jury, Owen Kenyon recalled that he was standing right next to Ryan. “We had our arms around each other,” he said. “If I recall right, it was just me and Ryan talking together at that time.”
Events then unfolded very, very fast. “It was like a fast strike,” he said. “A man with a balaclava on and dark clothing just ran up and struck Ryan, maybe two times.”
He continued: “They had a knife. He was trying to conceal it, shadow it, as such, by keeping it close to his body to try and hide it.”
The first strike, said Owen Kenyon, was to Mr Kirkpatrick’s belly area and the second, he thought, around the chest area.
That incident separated very briefly — “I believe there was an exchange of words”, said Owen Kenyon — before the attacker circled Mr Kirkpatrick and struck a further blow.
He couldn’t see the face of the attacker who, he said, was small and stocky. Mr Kirkpatrick collapsed on to the floor.
“Did you recognise the person who had struck these three blows?” asked Kim Whittlestone, for the prosecution.
“He had exactly the same build as Kane from the last attack,” said Owen Kenyon, who recalled the attacker running towards the courtyard exit.
“I seen Ryan was bleeding heavily on the floor. I didn’t think it was going to be long. I tried to run out of the court to see if a car could help. Once I realised that wasn’t going to be able to happen, I realise things isn’t good at all then.”
His brother, Shae Kenyon, was stood at the far end of the courtyard when the second incident began as two people wearing masks entered. “The shorter lad,” he said, “just ran at Ryan with a knife.” “Ran towards Ryan and stabbed him,” he recalled. “More than once. Two or three times, quite quick.”
The attacker left the courtyard with another person.
Shae Kenyon tried to help Mr Kirkpatrick. “After it happened, he fell over and then I put pressure on his wound. I got a waistcoat and put pressure on his wound,” he said. “I stayed with him until the police and ambulance showed up.”
A man and woman walking along Fisher Street on their way to a cinema just after 8.45pm heard a glass smash. The man said he heard a young woman shouting “why did you do that?“ at a time when two men were leaving Carlyle’s Court.”
His partner spoke of a “commotion” and said: “I see two males being pursued by at least one female.”
The two men got into a “dark coloured” car which had been parked on Fisher Street, and sped off. Conscious that times and factual details were often important, the woman told jurors: “I thought that something unusual was going on. I didn’t exactly know what was going on.
“I got up the ‘notes’ page on my phone and got the time down when things were happening, and started to try and get the number plate down.”
The woman, a nurse, wrote “Nd58wdt 2048” and told the court she felt “confident that the number plate is close to what was written down”.
Hull, of no fixed address, and a second man, Liam Porter, of Fulmar Place, Carlisle, deny the alleged murder and, alternatively, manslaughter of Mr Kirkpatrick.
Jurors have heard that the registration number of a blue Volvo S40 used by Hull and Porter earlier on September 18 was ND58 WZT.
The trial continues.
