A 14-year-old Lancashire schoolgirl was "left for dead" after being stabbed 20 times in a savage attack, a jury has been told.
Jessica Knight would almost certainly have died but for the actions of an ex-army man who had first aid training, Preston Crown Court heard.
"She had been subjected to a vicious, sustained and brutal attack," Crown Prosecutor William Waldron QC told the Preston Crown Court jury at the beginning of the trial of a French national who denies attempting to murder Jessica in January this year.
Mr Waldron said Jessica was walking through Astley Park in Chorley when she was attacked just after 5pm.
The man who the prosecution say probably saved her life, ex-soldier Gareth Crook, found her "moaning and gurgling" on the ground as he cycled home from work.
"He could see blood spurting from the side of her neck", Mr Waldron told the court.
"He removed his hat and put it beneath Jessica's head and used his gloves to apply pressure to the neck wound in order to stem the flow."
Police and paramedics soon arrived and the court heard that a police officer actually drove the ambulance to hospital as the two ambulance men desperately tried to keep Jessica alive in the back of the vehicle.
As doctors fought to save her life and newspapers were reporting the attack, the following evening the defendant, Kristofer Beddar, was taken into Chorley police station by his mother Marion who told the duty officer: "This is my son, I have brought him in, he is responsible for the stabbing."
Earlier that evening a television story about the attack on Jessica had appeared and the court heard that the defendant went upstairs, asking his mother to come up.
"It was then that he said: 'I think it was me Mum'", Mr Waldron told the jury.
"Mrs Beddar was later to tell the police that the defendant had said he had been very drunk and asked a girl for a cigarette.
"He went on to say that he had woken up that morning to discover blood on his jacket and shoes and when she asked him where they were, the defendant replied he had 'thrown them.'"
Beddar, 21, of Daisy Hill Drive, Adlington, Chorley, pleads not guilty to attempted murder.
He told police in a series of interviews he had been drinking heavily on the night and could not remember what happened.
Although he accepts, the jury has heard, that he inflicted the wounds, he denies an intention to kill.
Mr Waldron said it was the Crown's case that the defendant's mother and stepfather did not think he was drunk when they saw him on the night of the stabbing.
"We submit that the evidence you will hear is absolutely overwhelming," Mr Waldron told the jury.
"He stabbed her repeatedly to the neck area, cutting through her jugular vein. Anybody aiming a knife repeatedly at that most vulnerable of areas can intend one result and only one - to kill."
Mr Waldron went on: "Kristofer Beddar left young Jessica Knight lying face down, alone in the dark and bleeding to death from his savage attack upon her.
"He literally left her for dead. Had it not been for the timely appearance of Gareth Crook, we submit she would have died."
The trial is expected to last for a week.
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