Paranoid teen stabbed man in back after attack claim

A‘PARANOID’ teenager stabbed a man who confronted him in Runcorn about an alleged sex offence leaving him with a punctured lung.

Dillon Neil, 20, of The Uplands, Runcorn, decided to ‘fight fire with fire’ after Daniel Twigg turned up at his flat in the early hours of June 27, 2017, to remonstrate after Mr Twigg had been awoken by a distressed phone call from a girl claiming Neil had sexually assaulted her.

Oliver King, prosecuting at Chester Crown Court on Tuesday, said Mr Twigg arrived and then ‘words were exchanged about what had happened earlier that day’.

Neil then armed himself with a knife went over to Mr Twigg.

In his plea basis, Neil claimed Mr Twigg threw the first punch but this was not accepted by the Crown, which maintained it was Neil who launched the first punch.

In any case, the defendant then plunged the knife into Mr Twigg’s back, piercing his lung.

It dawned on Mr Twigg what had happened when he became short of breath and blood was pouring out.

An ambulance took him to hospital in Merseyside where medics treated his collapsed left lung, first clearing the cavity by inserting a surgical drain then reinflating it.

The procedure was a success and he was discharged the next day.

Neil, then 18, made admissions in police interview and later pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon.

Nicholas Clarke, defending Neil, requested full credit for the guilty pleas.

He said his client had mental health issues including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnosed while still in primary school, adding that child and adult men- tal health services now believe he is suffering schizophrenia with symptoms such as ‘hearing voices’ around the time of the incident and paranoia.

He said an incident had occurred between the defendant and his victim a year earlier, so ‘provocation’ and ‘paranoia’ could be considered, even more so as there were ‘people throwing stones at his window’.

He said Neil was a ‘very different person’ now from 2017.

His Honour Judge Steven Everett, presiding, sentenced him to three years and four months in prison.

The court heard Neil had been acquitted of sexual assault in connection with the initial allegation after the complainant did not attend trial to testify due to health reasons.

According to magistrates court filings, the complainant was a teenager under the age of 16.

Judge Everett told Neil it was clear he had lived ‘a troubled life because of mental health problems’ but he was lucky not to be serving a 25-year life sentence for murder, and could have kept his door shut but instead had chosen to ‘meet fire with fire’.

He said: “I always say to defendants who take knives to confrontations, they are always loaded, not like a gun where you need to put a bullet in and pull the trigger to shoot somebody

“Because if you take a knife, the blade is there, it’s naked to the world.

“You get into a fight and that blade can go into somebody as happened on this occasion.

“You stabbed him in the back.”

“The treatment for a punctured lung is very straightforward as long as you get to the hospital quickly.

“The hospital can treat that injury, but if one doesn’t it can prove fatal as well, he really could have died.

He added: “Had he died you would have been charged and convicted of murder and you would receive a mandatory life sentence.” ● A court heard Dillon Neil suffered paranoiac symptoms