A SCHOOLBOY who almost killed his best friend after they fell out over a girl was last night starting two-and-a-half years in custody.

Jonathon Wilson, 15, of Hart Lane, Hartlepool, plunged a kitchen knife into the back of friend Paul Brown, 17, when a play fight in his garden turned to violence.

Paul needed emergency surgery to save his life after the blade sliced into his kidney and caused near-fatal internal bleeding.

Wilson was charged with attempted murder, but pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm when he appeared in court yesterday.

The teenager was told by the Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox, QC: "The use by young people of knives is of increasing public concern and there needs to be an element in the sentence I pass which reflects that."

Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday that the friendship between the two boys started to "cool off" when Paul began associating with Wilson's former girlfriend.

Stephen Duffield, prosecuting, said the pair still met and although Wilson said he was not concerned by their relationship, he had become quiet and withdrawn and sometimes hostile.

On November 6, Paul called at Wilson's home and was among a group of friends who spent the afternoon in the front garden.

Mr Duffield said Paul thought they were having one of their regular fun fights when he was pushed off a wall and kicked, but realised it was more serious when Wilson put him in a headlock.

Friends told Wilson to stop, and Paul pleaded to be freed of the restraint but had to resort to poking his pal in the eye to be released.

Wilson stormed into his house, grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed him as the friends looked on.

Mr Duffield said Paul staggered out of the garden, but Wilson went after him and brought him back to his house and called an ambulance, which took the teenager to hospital where he had a kidney removed.

"Without surgical intervention to stop internal bleeding, this wound would, over a period of hours, have proved fatal."

Judge Fox told Wilson: "You could so easily have killed him. Thanks to prompt medical attention you did not. But the consequences for him were, and continue to be, severe, both physically and psychologically."

Paul Cleasby, mitigating, said the attack was a one-off incident and completely out-of-character for Wilson, who is now 16.

"They were still on friendly terms until this play fight got out of hand and until he, without warning, lost his temper," said Mr Cleasby. "He knows it was a serious act of violence and he very much regrets it.