Man so savagely attacked paramedics couldn't tell colour of his skin - court

A ROBBER stabbed a stable owner so savagely paramedics could not tell what colour his skin was because he was covered in blood, a court heard.

Cedric Brown attacked Mark Williams as he tried to protect his wife Susan during a burglary at their farmhouse near Warmley, a jury was told yesterday.

Cedric Brown

Birmingham Crown Court heard Brown slashed the throat of 51-year-old Mr Williams and stabbed him three times in the stomach at the farm on Siston Common.

It is claimed Brown and an accomplice also beat the couple's dogs so badly that they had to be put down after the raid in November 2010.

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Brown, 46, denies charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and burglary.

Anthony Potter, prosecuting, said Brown, who left a hat covered with his DNA at the scene, used a knife in a "gratuitous and unnecessary attack on a householder who had the temerity to try and protect his wife".

"He was stabbed so badly that when paramedics arrived at the scene they said they couldn't tell what colour his skin was," said Mr Potter. "He was literally covered in blood."

Mrs Williams, a hair stylist, told the court she had been in her pyjamas when she discovered the burglars.

She said: "We had just gone to bed and were just snuggling up to watch I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here when I heard the dogs barking.

"I went downstairs to see what was going on and thought it must be my daughter coming home.

"Then through the window into the kitchen I saw two men – one had a scarf wrapped round his head and the other was wearing a dark sort of bobble hat. One of them, the shorter man, saw me, grabbed me and put the knife to my throat. I screamed 'get out of my house, get out'.

Mrs Williams, 51, said that at that point her husband came downstairs in his nightwear. One of the men lunged at him and they struggled.

"It seemed to be for ages and when they stopped my husband looked dazed and was slipping out of consciousness," she said. "I could see he had been stabbed in the side and his throat had been cut, there was a cut by his eye and blood on his face."

Mrs Williams said one of the men repeatedly shouted: "Get the safe."

"Then he said to me 'we kill people'," she said. "He said it like he was offering me a cup of tea."

As the man came at her with a knife she said she "desperately" thought about what money the couple had and told him about the takings she had brought home from her salon.

Mrs Williams broke down and wept on the stand and told the jury: "I dropped to my knees and prayed for him not to kill us. He spotted the cross I was holding from my necklace and grabbed it and yanked it off my neck, that seemed to satisfy them and they left through the back door."

She said the men had been holding walking sticks from the couple's house.

"I believe they beat two of our dogs with them, because we had to have them put down," she said. "I am certain that he would have killed us had I not remembered that money."

The trial continues.