A 28-year-old man who stabbed his neighbour in the chest has told a murder trial jury that he was scared of his victim and was trying to get him away from his bedsit door.
Former trainee chef Adam Grant, who attended special schools before going to Calderdale College for two years, said he had had a fall-out with his next-door neighbour and claimed that Martin Wyatt had threatened to punch him.
On the day of the fatal stabbing last September Grant was in his ground floor bedsit with a friend when he said Mr Wyatt started banging on his wall and door for no reason.
Grant, who has denied the murder charge, said he put on music and turned it up to drown out the banging but his neighbour continued to bang on his door.
“How did you feel?” asked his barrister Michelle Colborne QC.
“Quite scared,” replied Grant, who has been assisted during the trial by an intermediary.
“I was frightened of him trying to get in and do something. I was fearing obviously that he would get in and hurt me and my friend.”
Grant claimed to have opened his door four times to tell Mr Wyatt to leave him alone and stop “bullying” him before he then rang his landlord.
The defendant, who had a roll of chef’s knives in a drawer, said he got a knife because he was frightened of what Mr Wyatt would do if he got into the bedsit.
During another confrontation at the door Grant said he was trying to frighten his neighbour away, but he said he never intended to hurt him.
“I just wanted him to go away from door and leave me alone,” said Grant.
He claimed that Mr Wyatt was punching at the door when he aimed at his arm using an “overarm” motion with the knife.
“Did you feel you were in control?” asked Miss Colborne.
“No,” said Grant.
As Mr Wyatt stepped backwards holding his chest Grant said he locked the door because he was panicking.
Grant claimed he was still panicking when he cleaned the knife and put it back in its pouch.
Mr Wyatt, 32, suffered a fatal stab wound to the heart during the tea-time incident at the property on Mixenden Road in Halifax last September and was pronounced dead at the scene despite the efforts of the emergency services.
When police officers went into Grant’s bedsit after the stabbing he told them he had been washing up and hadn’t done anything.
Today he told the jury at Bradford Crown Court that his lies to the police were “disgraceful” and said he regretted stabbing his neighbour.
The judge is expected to begin his summing up of the case on Monday.
The trial continues.
