A man stabbed in an ‘unprovoked’ needle attack in his own shop has told a court how he thought he was going to die.
Darren Michael Harris is accused of trying to kill Northallerton vinyl shop owner Gary Lewis in a needle attack last July. He denies attempted murder.
Anaesthetic nurse Harris, 57, seemed like a "normal friendly customer" before stabbing Mr Lewis in the buttock and "scurrying" from the shop without saying a word, leaving his victim "lying on the cobbles dying", jurors at Leeds Crown Court heard today (Tuesday, January 21).
Prosecutors say the Middlesbrough man had been in and out of the shop that day before returning at 2.15pm to carry out his “unprovoked” and “indiscriminate” attack.
“Five minutes later he went towards Gary Lewis who was sitting in his desk chair in a tight space behind a counter as if he was going to buy a record,” Mr Richard Herrmann KC said.
“As he swivelled away from the defendant in order to put the cash in the till the defendant [has] without warning reached towards and stabbed Gary Lewis in the bottom with a hypodermic needle, injecting him with a drug called rocuronium.”
That drug, the court heard, is normally used as a muscle relaxant alongside general anaesthetic to stop patients moving in surgery, and anyone on it would need help breathing.
"You can be sure that the defendant knew all of that", Mr Herrmann told the jury, adding Harris, of Amesbury Crescent in Middlesbrough was a specialist anaesthetist practitioner at James Cook University Hospital.
"It's from there he stole the drug and equipment necessary to carry out his wicked plan,” the prosecutor said.
After being stabbed, Mr Lewis told jurors how he ran after his attacker and pulled a shop sign into the road to stop him driving off, all while shouting for help as the drug started to kick in.
The shop owner and retired police officer of 30 years said: “I started to feel dizzy then I felt my legs go numb and I told Sue (his colleague) this who was by that point on the phone to the police and the ambulance. And I remember just becoming more and more unable to move.
“I couldn't hold my head, arms.
“I was losing consciousness.
“I tried to move something to let people know that I was still conscious.
“I tried hands, head, voice, feet. I remember her (Sue) shouting towards the phone 'he's fitting!'
“I actually thought I was going to die.
“I couldn't breathe, I was choking. Nothing moved. I was even trying to scream, I know that sounds dramatic, thinking if I can't get a word out maybe I can scream. I couldn't do that either.
“It was the most frightening feeling I have ever experienced and it just all happened so fast.
“I genuinely thought I was dying.”
Mr Lewis went on to tell how the attack had impacted his mental health, saying he will “probably never” recover.
"When you realise that you nearly died because of something someone did to you, that doesn't make you better, you don't recover," he added.
"I am not recovered now and I probably never will.
"I am wary of people being behind me and near me.
“There are so many reminders of what happened that day every single day. I am back to my shop every day, I am back to the place where someone tried to kill me. I can't avoid that."
Prosecutor Mr Herrmann continued: “It’s a matter of great fortune the effects of the drug were delayed so that Gary Lewis was able to pursue the defendant [out of his shop] to shout for help and tell those who came to his aid what happened.
“It is highly probable, and certainly Gary Lewis’ belief that he would have died alone in his shop behind the counter.
“Had he not initially been fit enough to say that he had been injected with something then those health care professionals for his care who ultimately saved him would have been so far behind.
Jurors saw bodycam footage when police arrived and arrested Harris at about 2.30pm, including him claiming a syringe in his car only had water in it.
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That was a “lie” he kept up in later interviews, the prosecution say.
A consultant who treated Mr Lewis, Dr Alistair White, told the court that his expectation was that a patient given rocuronium would die if not assisted with their breathing.
"In my mind if you administer a drug like this the expectation is the patient will stop breathing for a long enough amount of time that the level of CO2 go high enough, and the oxygen go low enough [and the patient isn't assisted] that the heart will stop and you will die,” he said.
Harris denies attempted murder, and an alternative charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, but has admitted an offence of administering a noxious substance.
The trial continues.
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