Tuesday, March 19, 2024
1Man stabbed at T in the Park – two men stand trial

Man stabbed at T in the Park – two men stand trial

By LAUREN CROOKS

A FESTIVAL goer told how a man with bloodstained hands joined his friends on the same night another reveller was stabbed 11 times.

David Crozier, 25, had been at T in the Park with friends and was sitting in a marquee when an unknown male joined the group.

The man was with a friend whose hands were covered in blood – and insisted that somebody had tried to fight with him.

But the male refused anything to help him clean up before he left the tent.

However he was captured in the background of a snap taken at the three day festival – and yesterday as Robert Kidd and John Tiffoney stood trial for attempted murder, he confirmed the man in the photograph was also in the dock.

Kidd, 24, and Tiffoney, 25, deny attempting to murder Mark Morrison by repeatedly punching, kicking and stabbing him on 13 July 2008.

They also deny assaulting three females at the festival on the same date last year.

The court heard from David Crozier, a teacher who was camping at the festival with a group of friends.

He told how as he sat chatting in a marquee shared by him and his friends, they spotted a man crouched down smoking near to them.

And when one of his friends called the man over, he and another man joined the group.

Mr Crozier said: “At one point we saw a man crunched down smoking behind a tent and he came over and sat with us. His friend joined him.

“My friend Nicola noticed he had blood on his hands and she said to him ‘would you like something to wash it off’?’ He said no, and when she asked how it had happened he told her someone had tried to fight him.

“We weren’t too keen about him joining us when we noticed the blood. We tried to turn away from him and hoped he would leave. They both left very quickly.”

But before they did leave, Mr Crozier had taken a number of photographs of his friends on his digital camera – including one which showed the man with blood on his hands in the background.

And yesterday as the photograph was shown to the court, Mr Crozier identified the man in the photograph as one of the men sitting in the dock.

The court also heard from Andrew Kennedy, who was camping at the blue campsite during the three-day festival.

Mr Kennedy told the jury that he had seen two men at a nearby tent – one of whom he thought was retrieving some kind of implement from underneath the tent, while the other acted as a lookout.

He added that the pair returned later on that evening, and it “looked as if they were getting changed”.

And as another man joined the two, Mr Kennedy told the court he heard someone shout to him: “Did you just stab that guy?”

Mr Kennedy said: “They came back probably about half an hour later, and it looked as if they were getting changed. There was another different guy who came back too, and somebody said to him ‘Did you just stab that guy?’.

“He made a gesture after it was said that looked as if the comment was at him. I believe this comment was said to him.”

Mr Kennedy said he never saw that man again, and did not see the original two until thenext morning, when they were packing up their belongings.

He said: “We saw them the next day, they were packing up and getting ready to leave. That was on the morning after. It appeared to be unusual – it looked as if their friends didn’t expect them to be leaving.”

During the second day of the trial against Kidd and Tiffoney, the court also heard from Ashleigh McComb – who the two accused are alleged to have spat on and punched.

She told how an argument broke out when two men were trying to urinate on one of the group’s tents.

She said: “We heard some commotion and so myself and Mark got out of the tent we were in. The boys were being quite aggressive and spat on Laura. I told them not to talk to her like that and that’s when the taller one spat on me and punched me.”

The court heard how Miss McComb was left with a black eye and swelling to her face after the attack.

She continued: “Mark tried to pull them off. When Mark was lying on the ground they were still hitting him. The shorter of the two was punching him on his body lower down.

“It stopped when the two boys ran away. Mark was on his hands and knees and he was holding his face and he just lay there.

“I pulled up his top at the bottom I saw stab marks and saw blood everywhere and that’s when I realised he had been stabbed.”

Miss McComb went on to rule out that any other person could have been involved in the scuffle.

The trial before Lord Woolman continues.

Related Stories