WITNESSES have spoken of desperate attempts to help three wounded men after they had been stabbed.

Joshua Clark, aged 21, Haidar Shah, 19, and Brandon Coope were all stabbed by 19-year-old Rashane Douglas outside Maggie’s nightclub, in Commercial Street, Halifax, at around 3.45am on October 1 last year.

Mr Clark – who was stabbed in the area of the heart – and Mr Shah – whose heart was penetrated – both died.

Douglas denies murdering the two men and the attempted murder of Mr Coope, who survived, and claims he was acting in self-defence after the trio surrounded him and laid on a “brutal assault”, the court heard yesterday.

The jury heard evidence from several witnesses on Wednesday, including two who stepped in to try help one of the injured men.

Friends Jamie Pilkington and Laura Berkeley were heading down Commercial Street towards Maggie’s and Ward’s End, when they saw fighting in the distance, the court heard.

In a video interview with police Mr Pilkington said he “didn’t think owt of it” but Ms Berkeley said in her interview there were three boys throwing punches towards a mixed race man with an afro.

She told Mark McKone KC, in the witness box, that she was unaware why the altercation happened but the court heard the man with the afro stabbed them all “very, very fast” before running off.

Mr Pilkington said he saw a man in a grey hoodie “stumbling” who “looked a bit fatigued” when they came closer, before he fell in his arms covered in blood and that is when he realised what happened.

He got back his jumper from Ms Berkeley and compressed the wound before more drastic action was needed.

Mr Pilkington said: "I took my jumper off of Laura and covered him up where the wound was and he stopped breathing, so I started doing CPR and gave him mouth to mouth as well, and got him breathing again, did it multiple times, and he started breathing more and more, I did that for 15 minutes I'd say until police came and ambulance came."

He added: "I just remember being covered in blood."

The man was Asian according to Ms Berkeley but Mr Pilkington described him as being light-skinned.

Ms Berkeley said: "I just remember his face, seeing all the blood on him, struggling to breathe, that's why I took my hoodie off, to try stop the bleeding".

She added: "My main focus was getting my sister away from the body because I didn't want her to see it then I went back to the body, but I didn't hear no words."

Ella White was sat on a bench right next to where the stabbings happened and rang 999 when she saw the aftermath.

She said members of the public and a bouncer from Maggie’s were doing CPR on the injured men, as well as using t-shirts to help.

Ms White said about blood on an Asian man on the floor: "It was just everywhere, all over his clothes, just soaked straight away."

Douglas also denies wounding with intent in relation to Mr Coope but pleaded guilty to carrying a knife on the first day of the trial, on Monday.

Yaseen Iqbal, 18, of Hall Bower, Huddersfield, denies assisting an offender over claims he helped Douglas avoid arrest by fleeing the scene with him in a taxi, letting him stay at his house that night, and helping him dispose of the clothing he had been wearing at the time.

The trial continues.