Man tell court of attempts to save friend after stabbing

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A man who desperately tried to stem the bleeding of his dying mate broke down in court as he recalled the night his friend was stabbed by an Auckland teenager.

Campbell Sussex, 26, escaped injury in the attack but his friend Daryl Graydon, 24, bled to death from deep knife wounds on December 8, 2007.

Two 20-year-old men, whose names are suppressed, are charged with Mr Graydon's murder.

They are also charged with attempted murder and attempting to cause grievous bodily harm to Mr Sussex. They deny all charges.

In the High Court at Auckland yesterday, Mr Sussex told of how the two men approached him and Mr Graydon at around 1am on Ridge Rd, Howick.

"They were yelling out 'two on two'. They wanted a fight.

"As they got about a metre and a half away they both pulled out knives and said 'knifey, knifey'.

Mr Sussex and Mr Graydon fled in opposite directions, pursued by the men. 

One of the attackers, armed with two knives, took off after Mr Sussex, the court heard.

"I was zigzagging over the front yards of the houses. He was running after me."

As he ran, he looked backwards over his shoulder and could see the other man attacking his friend, Mr Graydon.

"I could see him [the other man] chasing my mate out onto the street and he grabbed hold of my mate and swung him on to the road and stabbed him.

"I could hear my mate yelling out, telling him to 'f*** off'.

After running about 100 metres, Mr Sussex fell.

"I felt that I was lucky, I slipped over...he took a swing and tried to stab me with the knife. It probably would have got me."

The man then turned and fled with his friend who had been attacking Mr Graydon, Mr Sussex said.

He saw his friend, Mr Graydon, hunched over, walking into a front yard.

"I called out to him. He wasn't answering so I stood and listened and then I heard some gasping and I looked over this little fence and he was lying in the garden."

Mr Sussex then dialled 111.

"I took my t-shirts off and tried to cover the wounds the best I could until the ambulance got there."

He tried talking to his friend while he waited for the ambulance, but he was already unconscious, Mr Sussex said. 

The court heard on Monday the attack followed an earlier altercation between Mr Graydon and the two men.

Days after the attack one of the men went to a travel agent and paid cash for a one-way ticket to Brisbane.

He assumed a fake name and shaved his head. He was eventually arrested by police in January 2008 and extradited back to New Zealand.

The other man was arrested in Tauranga on December 28, 2007.

The trial is set down for three weeks.

- © Fairfax NZ News