A MAN has been found guilty of attempted murder after stabbing a fellow pub-goer following a row in a St Helier bar.
Paul Anthony Hadikin (58) left the Temple bar in Stopford Road on 3 December after getting into an argument – but returned around 15 minutes later armed with a large kitchen knife, which he plunged into his victim’s stomach.
Hadikin pleaded not guilty to the charge of attempted murder and claimed that he had fetched the knife only to scare the other man. He said that he had no intention of using it but that the pair had accidentally clashed in the doorway, which caused the injuries.
However, after two hours and 25 minutes the jury unanimously found Hadikin guilty of attempted murder.
He is now due to appear before the court for sentencing by the Superior Number of the Royal Court, which convenes for the most serious cases, on Monday 31 October.
During the four-day trial, Crown Advocate Matthew Maletroit, prosecuting, described Hadikin’s actions as being motivated by revenge for the earlier altercation and that it had been a ‘calculated and brutal act of violence’ in which ‘death was nearly the outcome’.
night of the attack to his daughter, read out in court, said ‘It’s all over. I’ve just killed someone’ and then ‘Help me. He’s dead’. Jurors were also played a phone call Hadikin made to his former wife from La Moye prison in January during which he described the weapon as ‘more like a sword than a knife’.
Advocate Maletroit said: ‘The victim suffered a wound which caused severe, life-threatening injuries. The defendant left him for dead, or so he believed. It is luck rather than judgment that he survived.’
Hadikin’s victim suffered a stab wound six or seven inches deep, which almost cut his colon in half and left him with one kidney. He needed to be placed in an induced coma for three weeks before spending another month in hospital.
Hadikin was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing.
