A Carlisle man who carried out a city centre street stabbing with a knife he had stolen hours earlier from an Asda store has been warned he faces a lengthy prison sentence.
Marc Anthony Proudfoot, 33, was seen by witnesses to lunge towards his male victim outside a fast food premises on Botchergate late on January 4.
A court heard how Proudfoot was not known to the other man before an incident between the pair.
This was reported at 10.05pm to police who learned a man had been stabbed in his side.
The victim later told officers how he looked down to the left of his torso and noticed a wound. He was taken to hospital and later released after receiving treatment.
Proudfoot — who stole a set of knives and scissors from the Asda outlet on London Road earlier in the day — had initially left the Botchergate crime scene after the stabbing. He returned to the area at around 10.20pm.
“He forced me to do it. He pushed me to the very end,” Proudfoot told officers. “I will admit it. I will do the jail time.”
When Proudfoot initially appeared at Carlisle Magistrates’ Court after the stabbing, prosecutor Diane Jackson revealed police had found a knife concealed in his sock. “That was for the next one,” he is said to have told officers.
Proudfoot appeared at Carlisle Crown Court today.
During a short hearing, he pleaded guilty to unlawfully and maliciously wounding the man with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm on January 4.
Proudfoot also admitted the illegal possession of a knife in public, on Botchergate; and theft of the knives and scissors from Asda on the same date.
The magistrates’ court prosecutor had confirmed that one stolen knife had been used to carry out the stabbing.
Proudfoot further admitted assaulting an emergency worker — a hospital security guard — during an earlier, separate incident which occurred on December 24.
The court heard Proudfoot’s guilty plea to the wounding charge was entered on the basis that, in his mind, he felt under threat at the time; but he had accepted that no violence was necessary.
Judge, Recorder Richard Hermann, adjourned the case.
He asked the probation service to prepare a pre-sentence report containing a dangerousness assessment — the level of risk Proudfoot is deemed to pose to the public of committing further serious offences.
Proudfoot, of Stanhope Road, Carlisle, is due to be sentenced at the crown court on March 20, and in the meantime has been remanded in custody.
Recorder Hermann told the defendant: “You will recognise and you will have been advised that these are very serious matters for which the inevitable sentence is going to be a lengthy custodial term.”
