Daniel Kirkwood trial: Friend saw bleeding stab victim clutching neck
A young man told a jury how a friend who was fleeing from an incident in a nightclub briefly grabbed hold of him – and he saw that he was bleeding and clutching his neck.
The jury at Warwick Crown Court heard that Marlon Wilson followed Daniel Kirkwood out of the club and saw him collapsed on the road as another friend desperately tried to save him.
But 18-year-old Daniel went into cardiac arrest in an ambulance as a result of injuries to the carotid sheath in his neck and his jugular vein, and was pronounced dead at 2.50am.
Tobijah Thompson, Hasham Ali, Ramez Murtaza, Ezra Scott and Zaker Khan have all pleaded not guilty to Daniel's murder in March last year.
They have also denied charges of violent disorder and wounding two of Daniel's friends, Nigel Mkhwananzi and Niall Kavanagh with intent to cause them grievous bodily harm.
Thompson, 25, of no fixed address; Murtaza, 21, of Bordesley Green East, Bordesley Green; Khan, 25, of Belchers Lane, Small Heath; Scott, 32, of Hawksyard Road, Erdington; and Ali, 19, of Amberley Green, Great Barr, also deny assaulting a fourth person, Christopher O'Brien. In addition Thompson, previously of Blakesley Way, Bordesley Green, has pleaded not guilty to possessing an offensive weapon, a knife, in the Society nightclub in Coventry.
Marlon Wilson, one of the friends with whom Daniel went to the club,
said that after going to another friend's home to change, they went to a bar and then to the Society where they were 'patted down' before being allowed in.
After going to the toilets in the club he was speaking to a young woman he knew when he noticed 'a commotion in the other corner.' He saw Christopher O'Brien 'and two Asian males' involved in a maul and rushed over to break it up. Mr Wilson said he then saw more of his friends 'backed up against the wall'.
Mr Wilson said he then recalled one of his friends, Jordan Williams, being restrained by a member of staff and being pulled out of the club, so went to follow him.
"I got to the doorway and I could see Jordan being thrown outside. I looked back, and that's when I could see Daniel running towards me.
"He was clutching his neck and running quite frantically.
"As he grabbed on to me I could see blood spill from his hand, and that's when I could tell he was injured."
The trial continues.
