The partner of a Good Samaritan slashed with a broken bottle said he awoke after being knocked out to find his girlfriend fatally wounded.
Mum-of-two Alison Wilson, 36, died after Stephen Duggan, 28, allegedly plunged the bottle into her neck, severing her jugular vein, in Frank Street, Widnes, on Saturday, March 7 this year.
Miss Wilson and her partner Anthony Tomlinson, 43, were attacked after stepping out of a taxi to intervene in a street row between Duggan and a young mum carrying a baby in a car seat.
Today Mr Tomlinson told Liverpool Crown Court how he was knocked out cold after being hit by the bottle which slashed open his face.
Duggan, 28, of no fixed address, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, wounding Mr Tomlinson and assaulting the other woman but denies murder.
He also denies one charge of assault on the baby, which fell from the car seat to the pavement.
Mr Tomlinson told the jury how Miss Wilson went to intervene after they spotted Duggan and the women “tussling” over the car seat and followed when the argument became more aggressive.
Under questioning from Gordon Cole, QC, prosecuting, he said: “I didn’t feel threatened at all, I didn’t think it was going to escalate. I walked over, said what’s going on? And then I was hit with something.”
"She was holding her hand to her neck with a “look of shock” on her face"
Mr Tomlinson described the blow as “hard” and said it connected with the top of his forehead.
He said: “I just saw white, I don’t know what happened. I think I was knocked unconscious, straight away
“The next thing I remember I was lying in the road, I sat up and saw Alison in the road. She wasn’t standing where I had last seen her.”
He told the jury he did not realise the extent of his injuries at first, and said his “first thought was for Alison.”
He said: “I could feel something wasn’t right, and it felt weird to talk. My lip was cut right to my cheek.”
With his voice breaking, he wiped his eyes as he told the jury she was holding her hand to her neck with a “look of shock” on her face.
The court heard the pair were taken to Whiston Hospital in separate ambulances, and Mr Tomlinson needed plastic surgery.
Mr Tomlinson said: “I asked the surgeon how many stitches I had, he said he had lost count.”
The court also heard from the mother of the baby, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
She told the jury that she was tussling with Duggan over a car seat, before the baby fell to the floor.
She said: “The lady (Miss Wilson) tried helping me get the car seat back, and the baby fell. Then after that I just remember feeling a blow to my face and I was a bit dazed after that.”
The woman told the jury she then saw Duggan “lash out” at Miss Wilson, and shouted “Oh my god, what are you doing?”
She was later treated in hospital for minor injuries.
Miss Wilson died from her injuries at Whiston Hospital on March 13.
(Proceeding)
Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/