'He jumped into the air and landed on me. I didn't know I'd been stabbed' - Oldbury chip shop boss tells court of knife attack
A chip shop manager was repeatedly stabbed in front of his 16-year old daughter during a frenzied and unprovoked attack by a customer, a court heard.
Leon McTaggart knifed Narinder Sidhu around six times outside Simply Fish and Chips in Hagley Road West, Oldbury, a trial was told.
The victim, aged 51 - said to have served the 29-year-old defendant before - told the jury: "He just launched himself at me.
"He ran, jumped into the air and landed on me, grabbing me round the neck area. I felt frenzied punches in my stomach, back and upper left side. I was trying to get him off me.
"I tried unsuccessfully to punch him and had to push him off. I did not realise I had been stabbed and was losing so much blood.
"I was crouching down and struggling to breath when he twice tried to kick me in the face. By that time people were running towards us and he ran off."
Mr Sidhu said the attacker had behaved strangely before the attack and explained: "He seemed very agitated, slamming his fists on the counter. I did not know what to make of it. I said 'yes please?' He kept repeating 'do I look like an idiot?' No order was placed and there was not conversation.
"He was frog marching back and forth. I couldn't work out what was wrong with him. He left the shop, then came back in, opened the door and kicked back into it.
"The door flexed and crashed into the fire alarm that went off. I said 'what have you done that for?' but he didn't answer me. Then he just walked away."
The manager went to look at the damage and was checking outside the shop when stabbed in the stomach, under and in the left arm as well as several times in the back on November 6 last year, the court heard.
McTaggart was arrested on November 28 and answered 'no comment' in four separate interviews about the incident, said Mr Scott Coughtrie, prosecuting.
The defendant was later picked out at a photographic identity parade by both Mr Sidhu and his daughter, who had a day off from school and was at the chip shop with him when the stabbing happened.
Mr Coughtrie concluded: "McTaggart was the customer who committed an unprovoked attack on Mr Sidhu in front of his daughter and other members of the public."
McTaggart, of Hagley Road, Edgbaston, denies wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The trial continues.
