Murder jury hears Lancaster dad Lee Farrington pleaded with friend 'not to let him die' as she tried to help him after stabbing

A woman has revealed how she tried to help her friend as he bled profusely from a fatal stab wound.
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Khadija Omar, who was with Lancaster dad Lee Farrington when he was knifed, was speaking during a video interview played to jurors at Preston Crown Court.

Mr Farrington, 29, died hours after the attack on Tarnsyke Road, with a post mortem examination revealing his femoral artery had been completely severed.

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Connor Reece denies his murder, but admits he dealt the fatal blow after wrongly believing another man had been stabbed.

Lee FarringtonLee Farrington
Lee Farrington

In the interview Miss Omar, who had only known him for three weeks since moving into the same complex as the victim, said she sat on a stairwell holding him up, and had tried to use a top to stem the blood.

She said: "There was just blood still everywhere.

"All Lee kept saying is: 'Don't let me die, please don't let me die.

"He kept on coming in and out of consciousness."

She described how some people at the scene tried to help, but others asked 'what he'd done' and 'who he'd robbed', and she told them Mr Farrington had done nothing.

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She said: " I got a cold shiver down my spine when I saw how evil people could be."

She said she kept talking to him, to try to keep him "upbeat", talking about his sons and telling him to squeeze her hands

Asked by an officer to describe Lee, she replied: "He's just a big kid - a heart full of gold and a head full of rust.

"He's a really good person, he's just going through a bad phase with drugs.

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"I feel like he was a replacement brother after losing my brother."

Miss Omar then gave evidence in person about an incident 11 days before the stabbing, in which herself, Mr Farrington, a friend called Ciaran Currie were confronted by the defendant, Connor Reece close to the nearby McColl's shop.

The court previously heard this incident had led to Reece, his girlfriend Danielle McCreery, and Currie being evicted from Oak Tree House.

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