Man, 74, fought off '˜paranoid' son's knife foray

Desmond Lockhead said that during the incident he feared for his life as his son Alan told him “I am going to kill you”.

A jury at Belfast Crown Court also heard that during the incident – which occurred in the kitchen of the family home in Ballyhackamore on the morning of March 22 last year – Desmond’s wife Sylvia, 72, was slashed twice in the arm as she intervened and tried to get her son to let go of the knife.

Alan Lockhead, 55 has been charged with attempting to murder his father, and of wounding his mother. The father of two has denied both charges.

Both Mr and Mrs Lockhead were called to give evidence against their son, who had just returned back to Belfast after living in London for 16 years.

The elderly couple both claimed that in the run-up to the incident their son’s behaviour was strange and that he was paranoid.

Mr Lockhead said he was sitting in his kitchen at around 6.30am when his son approached him and asked why a mobile phone they had given him wasn’t working.

Telling the court Alan “wasn’t pleased” because he couldn’t work the phone, Mr Lockhead said his son lifted a phone charger lead, walked behind him and began choking him with it.

He started shouting and fell backwards, while his son was saying “youse are all against me. I am going to kill you, you b*****d”. The pensioner said he managed to loosen the cable but that his son then came at him with a knife.

The pensioner said he told his son to put the knife down, but that “he made a slash at me with the knife” and caught him onm the ear and then on the top of the head. “I really feared for my life at that stage,” he said.

He dived at his son and sat on his chest to restrain him, calling his wife to get the knife. She banged his hand with a trainer until he let it go.

Alan Lockhead was then arrested while his parents were taken to hospital. Mr Lockhead was treated for lacerations to his head and ear, while Mrs Lockhead was treated for two separate 10cm slash wounds to her arm.