Stab victims feared for their lives, court told

Two men knifed during violence in which a wedding guest was murdered in the Black Country relived the moment they were stabbed and said they believed they would die.

Stephen Howell and Talvinder Singh told a court about being stabbed when trouble flared between guests attending a wedding at Bilston Town Hall and people outside the nearby Spread Eagle pub.

Consultant surgeon Maciej Matuszewski, who treated Mr Howell at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, told the city's crown court that he was wounded up to seven times and could have been killed.

The court heard that Mr Howell was attacked after confronting three men from the Spread Eagle crowd after threats were allegedly made to his children as he and other guests stood outside the wedding reception.

Mr Howell said he fell while running from 22-year-old Ricky Shaw, who was not one of the three men he confronted, shortly before midnight on July 10 last year.

He told the court: "I stumbled and went face down on the floor. I got stabbed in the back of the neck. I could feel the knife hitting the bone. I thought to myself: 'Steve, you had better get up or you are going to die here.'

"As I tried to get up Ricky Shaw was standing over me, stabbing me while saying: 'I am going to kill you.'"

He said he got up and ran but was stabbed again in the shoulder and added: "I was bleeding a lot and thought I was going to die."

Bystander Mr Singh, who had earlier been drinking in the Spread Eagle, told the court that he saw Mr Howell running before Shaw allegedly turned on him.

"I turned round, saw Ricky and he stabbed me. He jumped into the air with both feet off the ground and the knife in his right hand.

"When I came round there was a policewoman with me. I believe she saved my life."

Wedding guest Tom Berry was killed after being stabbed twice in the chest during the violence.

Shaw, of no fixed address, pleads not guilty to murdering Mr Berry, attempting to murder both Mr Howell and Mr Singh and assaulting his step brother Adam Shaw.

The trial continues.