A TEENAGER died from ‘catastrophic injuries’ after being stabbed 12 times in the head, heart, stomach and groin following a ‘foolish squabble’, a court has heard.

Sean Fell is accused of murdering Declan Eastwood, 17, at a house in Princess Street, Haslingden, where both had been drinking with friends.

Preston Crown Court heard Mr Eastwood had accused Fell of being involved in the theft of his wallet a week earlier and punched and headbutted Fell in the kitchen of the house.

The prosecution said 25-year-old Fell then went upstairs to ask for ‘protection’ from home owner Brent West.

When he came back downstairs, Fell went to a kitchen drawer and took out a knife.

Mark Lamberty, prosecuting said he then committed a ‘frenzied attack’ on former Haslingden High School pupil Mr Eastwood with such force that the knife bent.

Opening the case Mr Lamberty said: “There was an encounter in a house in the early hours of Saturday, August 6.

"There followed a foolish squabble between two men. Only one man walked away, the defendant.

The other man was killed.”

The jury was told that one of four ‘catastrophic’ blows out of 12 separate injuries could have killed Mr Eastwood.

The back of his skull was penetrated, there was a knife wound straight through the heart, another through his rib cage and a fourth ‘uppercut’ wound to his groin.

His left elbow bone was damaged amongst a number of other stab wounds.

Mr Lamberty said Mr Eastwood was sent reeling back into the living room where the rest of the West family – brothers Shane and Robert, their mum Vanessa and uncle Alan - were present.

Fell ran from the house, taking the knife with him and then dumped it outside his sister Kerry Marie Roach’s house in Hargreaves Street, Haslingden.

He made a minor attempt to hide it and at first claimed to have thrown it on a roof, but then later admitted where it was.

Police were called to the house in Princess Street, on the Greenfield estate, at 5.46am and Mr Eastwood, of Hillside Road, Haslingden, was pronounced dead at 6.42am, despite attempts by Alan West and then paramedics to resuscitate him.

Fell, of George Street, Haslingden, was arrested soon after at his sister’s address.

The prosecution said there was no dispute from the defence that Fell had fatally stabbed Mr Eastwood, but that their case would be based on self-defence and ‘diminished responsibility’.

Fell told police in several statements that he had been invited into the house, then Mr Eastwood ‘started being nasty’.

He went to ask Brent West for help, but that Mr Eastwood was waiting for him armed with a knife. He claimed he ‘wrestled it off him’ and was ‘just trying to protect himself’.

Mr Lamberty said that Fell’s defence team will also try to show that the defendant suffers from an ‘abnormality of mental functioning’ which would lower his understanding of the nature of his own conduct, rational judgement and self-control.

Mr Lamberty said that Fell was badly burned on his legs as a nine-year-old and was also ‘perhaps a little slow’, but said that doesn’t amount to a specific mental illness.

The court heard that in the build-up to the killing, the West family had been drinking at home on Friday.

They were joined by Mr Eastwood during the evening, before he left for a party.

During his absence, Fell arrived and smoked cannabis with Robert West. But when a ‘very drunk’ Mr Eastwood returned around 3am, he accused Fell and his female cousin of stealing or trying to steal his wallet several days earlier.

Fell denied it, but Mr Eastwood ‘wouldn’t let it go’.

Fell denies murder. The trial is expected to last until Friday.

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