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30
Jul
Trial opens into man accused of attempted murder in Melmerby
A man has gone on trial charged with attempted murder after a pub landlord was allegedly stabbed during a fight in the front car park of his pub in a village near Ripon.
Gary Holdsworth, 52, is accused of plunging a knife into the neck of 44-year-old Michael Ryan outside the George & Dragon in the village of Melmerby.
A jury at Leeds Crown Court heard that local builder Mr Holdsworth told Mr Ryan, “you’re gonna die; I’m going to kill you” as he stabbed him “about three times” with what appeared to be a “click” knife, leaving the stricken landlord lying in a pool of blood.
Yesterday (July 29), the second day of the trial, the jury was told that Mr Holdsworth and his friend Radk Szatkowski, both from Ripon, had gone into the pub late on the evening of December 4 last year to celebrate Mr Szatkowski’s 40th birthday.
It’s alleged that Mr Szatkowski, now 41, who is charged with affray, became “drunk and belligerent” and had an argument with Mr Ryan, ostensibly over the payment for some drinks near closing time.
Prosecutor Anne Richardson said that Mr Ryan, known as Mick, told Mr Szatkowski to get out of his pub, whereupon the two men argued as the landlord tried to escort him out.
Mr Holdsworth followed them outside into the front car park where the heated exchange continued and a fight broke out between Mr Ryan and Mr Szatkowski at about 11.20pm.
Ms Richardson said that after some pushing and shoving, and punches being thrown by both men, Mr Holdsworth came over and got on top of Mr Ryan’s back.
Mr Holdsworth, a married father, then took a knife out of his pocket before repeatedly stabbing Mr Ryan in the neck, said Ms Richardson.
As blood seeped from the landlord’s neck, two other men who had been drinking in the pub came running out after hearing a woman’s screams.
One of them split up the fight and dragged Mr Ryan back inside the pub where he applied pressure to his neck wound to stem the bleeding.
The George and Dragon pub in Melmerby.
Mr Ryan’s panic-stricken partner Siri Wan Fawcett, who worked as a chef at the pub/restaurant on Main Street, made a desperate 999 call.
She told the operator in broken English that someone had “slashed his throat” and that there was “blood everywhere”.
An ambulance arrived and took the “badly injured” Mr Ryan to James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough where he underwent surgery to repair his neck wounds.
Prosecuting barrister Ms Richardson said that in the hours leading up the incident, Mr Holdsworth had finished work and gone to another pub, The George Country Inn, in the nearby village of Wath, where Mr Szatkowski was a chef and where Mr Holdsworth’s wife Samantha also worked.
‘Uneventful evening’
The two men spent an hour at The George, drinking a bottle of whisky “amongst other things”, before being driven by Mrs Holdsworth to The George & Dragon, arriving there just before 11pm.
Ms Richardson said:
It appeared to be a fairly uneventful evening until an argument broke out between Mr Ryan and Polish national Mr Szatkowski, ostensibly over payment for drinks, but more likely due to Mr Szatkowski’s belligerent and drunken behaviour.
It was the first time Mr Ryan had met either of the defendants, as they had not been into The George & Dragon since he and Ms Fawcett took over the running of it.
She said that initially there was “good- humoured banter amongst the patrons of the pub” and “joking banter between Mr Ryan and Mr Szatkowski about the difference between English and Polish people”.
“However, by just after 11.15pm, the mood had changed,” she added.
Ms Richardson said “more drunk and more belligerent” and matters came to a head when he and Mr Ryan had an altercation.
She said:
Eventually, Mr Szatkowski, clearly inebriated, opened the door to the public house and asked Mr Ryan if he wanted to go outside with him, before telling another male in the bar to ‘fxxx off’. Mr Ryan told him to get out as it was his pub, and Mr Szatkowski said he had paid for his beer and wanted to finish it.
Mr Ryan returned to the bar, but unfortunately, after a short time, so did Mr Szatkowski, still insisting that he be allowed to finish his beer.
Perhaps understandably, having had quite enough by this stage, Mick Ryan escorted him once more to the door, using his hands to push him out of the door, before following him outside…to ensure he left the premises.
Whilst the dispute had nothing to do with Gary Holdsworth, he too went outside, saying ‘let’s sort it out’.
The court heard that a fight ensued between Mr Szatkowski and Mr Ryan. She said:
Mr Ryan told Radk Szatkowski that he was barred and not to come in anymore, telling him to go home. Punches were exchanged and then Gary Holdsworth also became involved and got onto Mr Ryan’s back.
The Crown’s case is that Gary Holdsworth produced a knife, seen clearly by Siri Fawcett, and used it three times on Mr Ryan, saying to him ‘you’re gonna die, I’m going to kill you’.
Mick Ryan sustained injuries to his neck and was bleeding profusely.
Ms Richardson said that after the named male witness dragged Mr Holdsworth back into the pub and stemmed the bleeding with a towel or fleece jumper, Mr Holdsworth and Mr Szatkowski went back inside to the toilets.
“No doubt both of them wanted to wash their hands,” she added.
“Before leaving the pub for the final time, Mr Szatkowski said ‘sorry’.”
As Mr Holdsworth left the pub and passed the stricken landlord lying on the floor and bleeding out, he was heard to say “something along the lines of ‘you’re a fxxxxxx axxxxxxx’ and ‘that’ll be a lesson learned’.
Panic-stricken
Panic-stricken Ms Fawcett tried to call an ambulance “but the reception kept cutting out, and she desperately kept trying to reconnect with the 999 service”.
She struggled to make herself understood to the call operator because of her Thai accent and broken English, exacerbated by her “extreme state of anxiety”.
Police arrived at the scene and went in search of Mr Holdsworth and Mr Szatkowski who appeared to have “gone in opposite directions”.
Police, who had been given witness accounts by people at the pub, went to Mr Holdsworth’s five-bedroom home in the early hours of the following morning and arrested him and Mr Szatkowski.
Ms Richardson told the jury:
Despite a search being made of the area, no knife was found which might have inflicted Mr Ryan’s wounds, but you may feel that there was plenty of time to dispose of a knife whilst walking to their respective homes and before the police arrived.
Both men were quizzed by police later that day when Mr Szatkowski answered “no comment” to all questions.
Mr Holdsworth said he had been “very drunk” and only had a “hazy recollection of events” from leaving the first pub, the George Country Inn, as he had shared a bottle of whisky there with Mr Szatkowski and then had five more pints at the George & Dragon.
He said that Mr Ryan had been “heavy-handed” with Mr Szatkowski and that he had gone outside “to ensure that no harm came to Radk”.
“He denied using a knife and indeed said he had not seen a knife at all,” said Ms Richardson.
The following day, upon being charged with attempted murder and possessing a blade, he told police: “If there’s a knife, that’s not my knife.”
Mr Ryan, who is also a father, was given a CT scan and underwent surgery at James Cook Hospital the following day to repair lacerations or wounds to his neck.
“One of the lacerations was deep and caused muscle damage and needed flushing out before all lacerations were sutured,” said Ms Richardson.
She added:
The fact that Mr Ryan’s injuries were not life-threatening in the end, despite one of the injuries coming close to the main salivary gland, owes more to good luck than anything else.
She said it was the Crown’s case that “the actions of Radk Szatkowski…go beyond that of a belligerent, drunken man making a nuisance of himself, and that he used or threatened unlawful violence to Mr Ryan, who was only trying to ensure he did not return to his pub in that state”.
She added: “Whilst Gary Holdsworth may have at first attempted to calm things down, he… took part in a fight which was not his and escalated things beyond measure, taking out a knife or bladed article, and using it on Mr Ryan.”
Ms Fawcett, 39, said she saw Mr Holdsworth joining the fray in the car park, “holding the knife in his right hand”.
“The knife (was) like a click knife and the sharp end came out,” she added.
She then heard Mr Holdsworth saying, “you’re gonna die; I’m going to kill you” as he thrust the knife into her partner “about three times”.
She said that she and Mr Ryan lived above the pub and that she cooked for customers in the pub’s Thai-food restaurant while he managed the bar and cellar. They had only been running the pub for a matter of a few months.
Samantha Holdsworth, the wife of the accused, told the court that her husband was in “a bit of state” when he returned from the pub.
She said she rang the police at about 12.20am to tell them about what her husband said had happened at the pub, namely that he and Mr Szatkowski had been assaulted.
She told police that her husband had said that he had had “a knife pulled out on him by the (landlord) of the pub” and that Mr Ryan had started the fight.
She said that Mr Szatkowski later turned up at their house with a black eye before police turned to arrest the two men.
Mr Holdsworth, of The Paddock, Melmerby, denies attempted murder, possessing a bladed article and an alternative charge of wounding with intent.
Mr Szatkowski, of Main Street, Wath, near Ripon, denies affray.
The trial continues.
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