A WITNESS in the Luke Fitzpatrick murder trial has told a court how he cannot get the image of his dead friend out of his head.
Barry Mahoney, who had known the London Irishman for nearly 20 years, was among the first to reach Luke following the attack outside the Ox and Gate pub on May 19, 2012.
The pair and Luke’s Dublin-born father Bernard had been watching the Champions League final with friends in the pub that evening.
Later Mr Mahoney followed a group of pub patrons, including Luke, up the road after a gang attempted to storm the pub in an alleged revenge attack for their leader’s loss of face earlier that night.
But when he spotted his childhood pal he had already been stabbed, the Old Bailey heard.
“There was a lot of smashing and crashing in the pub, but once the group who were trying to get in had been repelled it carried on into the street,” he told the court. “I could see Luke running up the road, Bernie followed, and then I went.”
He added: “I was turning the corner when I first saw Luke; he was in the middle of road. He was still on his feet but I saw a red patch on his left chest.
"From the way he looked I had the feeling he might be dead, from the look on his face. His eyes were wide open, he seemed to look in my direction but I don’t know.”
On February 27 Mr Mahoney was called as a witness in the trial, which is expected to last eight weeks.
There he recalled the days that followed Luke’s death as a ‘blur’ and claims the events of that night still haunt him.
“Luke took some steps and then dropped to the pavement. He fell to the floor – it was chaos,” he told the jury. “I have spent eight months trying to get that image out of my head.”
He added: “In the days after I couldn’t sleep, I hadn’t eaten and I was trying to go over and over it in my head. I was in a terrible state. I could not get the image of what I saw out of my head - Luke on the floor, Luke getting his chest pumped for what seemed like a lifetime.”
Luke’s father Bernard Fitzpatrick was left with multiple stab wounds to his head, stomach and legs following the attack.
Christopher Walters, 23, of Lovett Way, in Neasden and two 17-year-old youths, who cannot be named for legal reasons, deny murdering Luke Fitzpatrick and the attempted murder of his father Bernard Fitzpatrick.
Four other men deny violent disorder related to the storming of the pub.
The trial continues.
