T knife victim 'helping friend'

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A festival-goer has told a jury that he was stabbed 11 times at T in the Park as he went to help a girl friend.

Mark Morrison said he confronted a man who had attacked his friend and a fight broke out. Someone else then allegedly jumped on his back and he was stabbed.

His injuries included six stab wounds on his back, three on his right side, and one on the right side of his head.

Robert Kidd, 24, from Barrhead, and John Tiffoney, 25, from Cardiff, deny attempting to murder Mr Morrison.

Mr Morrison, 23, was giving evidence at the High Court in Dunfermline on the first day of the trail.

Punctured lung

He told the court: "I felt blows on my back several times. Then I felt myself struggling to breathe.

"I got up to try to get myself away. I thought I had been winded or at worst cracked a rib.

"I walked up by our tent and fell to my knees.

"The man followed me and kicked me to the side of my head and I remember him walking away from me."

Mr Morrison said he was taken to the festival's medical tent. He had a chest drain inserted as the stab wounds had punctured his lung.

He added: "If it had been left much longer I might not be here now."

However, he told the advocate depute, Maurice O'Carroll, that he could not identify who it was who attacked him.

Mr Kidd and Mr Tiffoney have pled not guilty to charges of attempting to murder Mr Morrison by repeatedly kicking him to the head and body and repeatedly stabbing him on the body with a knife or similar instrument all to his severe injury, permanent disfigurement and permanent impairment.

The incident is alleged to have taken place at the festival at Balado, Kinross-shire, on 13 July last year.

Mr Kidd and Mr Tiffoney further deny three assaults on women at the festival.

Mr Kidd also denies committing a breach of the peace at his home in Barrhead on 15 August last year by waving a Samurai sword or similar at four police officers, threatening them with violence, climbing on to the roof of the house, refusing to come down and shouting and swearing.

The trial, before Lord Woolman, continues.