Blackpool man stabbed friend in back in Blackburn after she stabbed him first months earlier
Two old friends stabbed each other in a tit-for-tat row a court was told.
Vengeful Peter Green knifed Deborah Grant in the back six months after she had done the same to him and told her: “What goes round comes round.”
Green, formerly from Blackpool, was jailed at Preston Crown Court after a judge heard he had inflicted a “nasty” wound which left Grant with a collapsed lung.
The prosecution revealed the injury was “a mirror image” of what Green had suffered months earlier at the hands of Grant following a long-standing quarrel over who was to blame for the tragic suicide of her sister
The court heard Green had been in a relationship with the sister. Grant and others in the same group of friends blamed him for her taking her own life.
But Green refused to accept he had caused it, saying drugs had played a significant part and “it wasn’t he who introduced her to drugs.”
The 46-year-old, who was living in Blackburn at the time of the stabbing, admitted causing grievous bodily harm to Grant in February 2022.
He was sent to prison for two years and four months by Recorder Ciaran Rankin and made the subject of a restraining order banning him from making any contact with Grant for five years.
Grant will be sentenced in September for the earlier stabbing.
The court was told the attack happened at Green’s best friend’s flat in Blackburn when Grant called round one lunchtime.
There had been “some previous” between the pair and suddenly Grant felt a blow to the left of her shoulder blade. She turned round to see a black handled knife and Green boasting: “What goes round comes round.”
She felt blood trickling down her side and realised she had been stabbed. She called the police herself and was taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital by ambulance.
Doctors discovered a two to three centimetre wound at the back of her chest. A CT scan revealed she had a pneumothorax which had caused her lung to collapse. She was fitted with a chest drain and spent days in hospital.
In a victim statement to the court Grant said she had been left feeling fearful when she went out and felt panic when she saw Green in public. She had been looking to start work but had relapsed back to abusing alcohol to help her cope.
Recorder Rankin was told Green had a list of previous convictions involving violence and possession of bladed articles, mostly in the Blackpool area.
Barrister Paul Humphries, defending, said the pair had been in the same group of friends for years.
“The significant feature of this is that in the previous August the defendant (Green) was stabbed by the complainant (Grant).
“They need to put this behind them. They both need to be careful seeing each other, but there is no reason they can’t see each other when they have friends in common.
“The defendant (Green) says the court can make one (a restraining order), no problem at all. But he says there has been no problem between them for the last two-and-a-half years (since the stabbing).”
He added there had been a “sad history” between the two and both had become victims. “Both have suffered at each other’s hands,” he said.
Green, of Cockridge Close, Blackburn, had been stabbed by Grant in August 2021 and, like Grant, had suffered a pneumothorax which led to a collapsed lung. He had become paranoid and had stopped going out. He had nightmares about what happened and suffered flashbacks when he saw knives.
Recorder Rankin said Green had caused a “significant” injury to Grant and told him: “You have a quite terrible record of offences of violence and having knives in the past.
“It (knife) is a highly dangerous weapon in the wrong people’s hands, which was you.”
He rejected a defence suggestion to suspend any prison sentence and said only an immediate period of custody was sufficient.