Stabbed son told father ‘I’m going to die here’, jury told

Terence Hirst told Leeds Crown Court yesterday he rolled his son Joshua over on the pavement near their home in Grove Street, Mirfield.

“He looked at me and he said ‘I’m going to die here’ and I said ‘you’re not. Your brother loves you, I love you, your mum loves you, your girlfriend loves you.
You have a business to run’. I was just trying to keep talking.” he said.

He could hear his wife screaming and among people who came to their aid was a care assistant walking home from work.

She relayed instructions from the ambulance service and helped him to press towels on his son’s neck wounds. “She was an angel,” said Mr Hirst.

Joshua was taken to hospital but did not survive his injuries, which included his carotid artery being cut.

On trial are Joe Church, 21 of Redlands Close, Mirfield, Aaron Smith, 19 of Saville Street, Emley and Nadeem Rashid, 21 of Lapwing View, Horbury who each deny murdering Joshua Hirst, 20 on August 3 and possessing a knife.

The prosecution claim they had been hunting for Joshua Hirst in a car driven by Rashid.

Mr Hirst told the jury his son had been out that evening celebrating the 18th birthday of his girlfriend Lauren Pachniuk.

He and his wife Julie had gone to bed when she heard Joshua shouting “Dad, dad” and he went downstairs and found him in the kitchen. He said his son was facing away from him. “He rotated and I said ‘what’s wrong?’.

“As I stepped forward I slipped and I couldn’t stand up and I looked at the floor and it was covered in blood.”

He said his son appeared 
calm. “He just looked at me and said ‘I’ve been stabbed, what do I do’?”

Mr Hirst said he only had a shirt on, so went upstairs to get dressed, telling his son to go out to his van, intending to drive him to hospital. But he never made it that far.

When he went outside at first he could not see his son, then spotted him collapsed on the pavement.

He told the jury Joshua worked with him in his welding and fabrication business and he had hoped his son would take it over when he retired.

The trial continues.