An 89-year-old Bolton man shouted ‘I’ll bloody kill you’ before stabbing his neighbour in the neck with a kitchen knife on the driveway they shared, a court has heard.
William Dutton left next door neighbour Steven Waring with a 10cm wound in the incident during an ongoing row between Mr Waring and Dutton’s son Ronald, 64.
Bolton Crown Court heard that Mr Waring, 61, and his wife Jeanette, 54, had lived next door to Dutton and his wife Iris and their son Ronald, who requires a walking stick, for 12 years and that there had been a number of ‘disputes’ between the two at their homes in Bolton, Greater Manchester.
Mr Waring said that after a confrontation with Ronald on January 26 he heard Dutton say ‘I will bloody kill you’ twice and said he saw Dutton’s hand coming at him as though he was going to punch him.
He said: “I didn’t see where he came from until he said ‘I will bloody kill you’. I turned around and the next thing I know I thought he was going to punch me, obviously he had a knife in his hand. He slashed my throat.
“He came at me by surprise. I just felt it going very warm, all my clothes went very soggy. I put my hand to my neck, it was that deep my finger went inside my neck.”
He told the court that if he knew Dutton had a knife he would have ‘ducked’ and denied that there had been any struggle or entanglement between them resulting in his injuries.
Mr Waring said that he called Dutton ‘a fucking bastard’ adding, ‘you have knifed me’ before pushing him away.
He said he went inside his house and got his wife to call an ambulance as he put kitchen roll to his neck.
He added: “I knew it was a really, really bad injury, I was feeling a little bit faint.”
After the incident, police and paramedics were called and Mr Waring was taken to the Royal Manchester Infirmary where he was treated for the 10cm cut across his neck which required surgery.
The court heard that Dutton Snr was arrested that evening and said: “I got the knife from my kitchen, no one is assaulting me and I stabbed him.”
The court heard that in the lead-up to the incident Mr Waring had approached Ronald Dutton to confront him about a previous incident in which he said that Ronald had struck his wife with his walking stick.
Prosecutor Nicoletta Amatino said: “The complainant Steven Waring saw Ronald Dutton, the defendant’s son, arriving home and he decided to go and speak to Ronald about an incident that happened previously.
“Ronald was walking with a man John Morton who also lived at Breightmet Drive. As the complainant approached Ronald, William Dutton came out of his house and walked towards the complainant.
“You will hear he was carrying a kitchen knife. The Crown’s case is that he shouted something along the lines of ‘I will bloody kill you’. He struck out as if to punch the complainant who realised he was bleeding at the neck and had been cut.”
Dutton, who was dressed in a tweed suit, shirt and tie and wearing a hearing aid, pleaded not guilty to wounding with intent to do GBH and the alternative charge of unlawful wounding at the start of a trial at Bolton Crown Court.
The jury was told that a Loop system was required for Dutton because he was of ‘some advanced years’.
The court heard that on January 26 this year the Warings had been at their local pub between noon and 5.30pm before returning home.
During cross examination by the defence counsel Phillip Boyd, it was put to Mr Waring that he had spent the afternoon drinking in the pub for five and a half hours.
Mr Boyd told the jury that before the incident Ronald had called the police earlier because he had been ‘scared’ of Mr Waring.
Mr Boyd suggested that his client had not said he was going to kill him and had been ‘worried because he thought his son was in danger’.
The case continues.
Story via Cavendish Press
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