Blood ‘ran
down the
street’ as
victim died

Paramedics who tried to help a man found fatally stabbed in a village street in West Yorkshire have described blood running down the road when they arrived.

Craig Hepburn, 19, died and Connor Paton, 18, were attacked hours after arriving in Marsden, West Yorkshire, on a family visit.

Yesterday, the trial of two men accused of murdering Mr Hepburn – Anthony Driver and Luke Elliott – heard statements from medics who tried to save him.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The jury at Leeds Crown Court was told how the first crews on the scene were waiting for a police escort when one of Mr Hepburn’s relatives ran up and urged them to hurry as the attackers had fled.

A two-person ambulance crew as well as an emergency responder and their clinical supervisor then went to help the young man, who was lying in a gutter. They were soon joined by two doctors.

Medic Kathryn Barraclough’s statement read: “There was a lot of blood running down the street.”

Mr Hepburn was unconscious but still breathing. She cut off his Manchester City football top and was joking about his shirt in an attempt to reassure him but she did not know if he could hear her.

She struggled to get a pulse and he was clearly dying.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Paramedic practitioner Graham Butcher, the emergency responder, arrived to find “a great deal of blood running down the road”.

The medics also described how they found Mr Paton lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor of a terrace house nearby. He had three stab wounds to his back.

Both were taken to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary where Mr Hepburn, who had been stabbed 11 times, died but Mr Paton survived.

The two men, who were visiting from their homes in Linwood, near Paisley, Renfrewshire, went out socialising in Marsden that evening and Mr Hepburn was playing his bagpipes. They were on their way back to his uncle’s house when they were attacked late on Friday July 6 last year.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Driver, 36, of Grange Cottages, Marsden, and Elliott, 22, of Main Avenue, Cowlersley, each deny murder, attempted murder, causing grievous bodily harm with intent and perverting justice.

The case continues.