Pensioner stabbed neighbour ten times with kitchen knife

A Doncaster pensioner stabbed his neighbour at least ten times with a kitchen knife following a long-running dispute about the boundary between their two properties, a court heard.
Manor Road, HarlingtonManor Road, Harlington
Manor Road, Harlington

Arthur Jepson, aged 66, of Manor Road, Harlington, repeatedly stabbed Nicholas McNaughton on the evening of March 7 this year – partially-severing an artery in his neighbour’s arm in the process.

Jepson, who denies attempted murder and an alternative charge of wounding with intent, has gone on trial at Sheffield Crown Court.

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Mr McNaughton said: “I didn’t realise he was stabbing me and I thought he was punching me in the arm.

“I pushed him back. I was aware something wasn’t right. I punched him twice. He fell over and I was on the floor.

“My arm just exploded. It was like hot coffee or water going down my arm. I realised it was a serious issue.”

Andrew Espley, prosecuting, said the men had been involved in a long-running dispute about the boundary between their two properties and each had called the police about the activities of the other in the past.

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He said Mr McNaughton had gone to bed on the evening in question after returning home from work and was woken up at around 11.30pm by Jepson returning to the neighbouring property on his motorbike.

Mr Espley said Mr McNaughton opened his bedroom window and ‘saw that Mr Jepson had thrown a fence panel into his back garden’.

He said he got partially dressed and went outside to throw the fence panel back on to Jepson’s land.

Mr Espley said Jepson had said ‘What do you think you are doing?’ before he ‘launched an attack’.

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“He pulled him towards him and began stabbing him in the side of the arm. His face was expressionless as he did this,” he said.

Mr Espley said when Mr McNaughton realised he had been badly injured he ran back into the house and locked the door, with ‘blood everywhere’ as he called the police.

Mr McNaughton later required surgery and a skin graft after it was discovered the main artery in his left arm had been 80 per cent severed.

When police officers arrived at the scene within one minute of being called, they saw Jepson in the street talking on the phone ‘still holding the knife he used to stab Mr McNaughton’.

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Mr Espley said that when interviewed by the police, Jepson said he had been attacked by Mr McNaughton and had been hit ‘six, eight or ten times’ before grabbing a knife he had been using for gardening to use in self-defence.

He said Jepson told officers he ‘thought he was going to die’ and had been ‘jabbing’ at Mr McNaughton with the knife to get him away.

Mr Espley said Jepson told officers the use of the knife had ‘served its purpose’ as ‘one cut him in a bad spot’

Mr Espley told the jury the prosecution intended to prove Jepson had not been acting in self-defence.

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“This wasn’t self-defence. His intent was to kill. At the very, very least, the number of wounds inflicted and their severity show his intention must have been to cause Mr McNaughton really serious harm.”

The trial continues.