THE colleague of a woman allegedly murdered described how he saw her ex-boyfriend pull out a knife, a court has heard.

James Young told Winchester Crown Court he saw Stuart ‘George’ Thomas hold up a large blade and walk towards him in an alleyway close by.

Mr Young claimed he heard screams from fellow barber Katrina O’Hara, from within Jock’s Barbers shop, as the Blandford shop closed for the day. He went outside to find Thomas pinning Miss O’Hara down onto a car.

He shouted for her to get away and she said “he’s got a knife”, she ran towards Mr Young, out from the alleyway and Mr Young’s view.

After seeing what he called a large blade Mr Young said he ran to call the police from a kebab shop nearby. He said: “I felt I just had to get out into the open. Because there was a guy coming at me with a knife.”

Headed for Jock’s, Mr Young was stopped by a laundrette worker who said “don’t go in there; someone’s died”, he said Mr Young then made another call from the kebab shop - this time to the ambulance service - saying he thought Miss O’Hara had been stabbed. He later saw her lying on the floor at the back of the barbershop, he said.

Thomas, 49, of Salisbury Road in Blandford, denies murdering 44-year-old Miss O’Hara. She died at the scene on January 7 having sustained two stab wounds to her chest.

William Mousley QC, defending, said Mr Young was some distance away and wouldn’t have been able to see Miss O’Hara and Thomas in what he called a “six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other” situation.

“Do you feel any sense of regret that you didn’t do anymore to help Katrina?” he said.

“In fact you did go back in the shop - you said you hadn’t and you just ran away - to try to make it easier for you for not having done anything.”

Mr Young denied returning to Jock’s, adding: “She obviously didn’t want to be there.”

Jurors saw footage from crime scene investigators of a trail of blood spatter from the shop to Dorset Street, Orchard Street, Rookery Lane and School Lane.

The trial continues.