A chef who stabbed to death his girlfriend at the Black Country restaurant where they both worked wept as he told a jury – “I did not intend to kill her. You do not hurt what you love.”

Devon Cohen claimed 26-year-old waitress Ann-Marie Kamilla Parkes was accidentally knifed while trying to force her way passed him at The Caribbean Hut in Broad Street, Wolverhampton.

The 43-year-old claims he was walking to the fridge and carrying a sharp knife used to scale fish, when the pair came face to face in a dark passage on October 18 last year.

Cohen from Riches Street, Whitmore Reans, told Wolverhampton Crown Court: “In a split second she tried to barge me out of the way. She barged into the knife.

“I knew it had cut her. She screamed and said something like ‘hey, you had a knife in your hand’.”

Cohen admitted throwing the knife towards a bin as he fled from the restaurant and headed for his home, where he changed clothes before returning to the scene to hand himself in to police.

Miss Parkes from Grosvenor Road, Birmingham suffered a 12 cm deep stab wound through the heart and lung died in hospital six days later.

Cohen denies murder but has admitted manslaughter.

The case continues.