A KNIFE wielding “hitman” returned to try to finish the job after the victim asked him why he was trying to murder him.

Pensioner John Sales almost died after suffering multiple wounds from a 10ins knife in his back garden before he pulled himself through his house in Hythe Hill, Colchester, to get help.

Mr Sales, 70, told the jury at Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday: “I was getting ready to go to bowls about 5.30pm.

“A chap came to the door. I did not recognise him.

“I believe the chap said his grandson had kicked the ball over the fence and could I go and look for it.

“I said yes and got a torch.”

Ryan Hynes, 21, who has admitted attempted murder, then began attacking Mr Sales starting with a blow to the face.

Mr Sales said: “I thought I was being kicked and punched to death.

“It was not until I phoned the emergency services I saw all the blood.

“I was cowering. I am not sure if my body shut down.

“He done what he done and then walked away. I was sitting on the ground and I said ‘What have I done wrong?’.

“He came back and started again. I remember that all right.”

Hynes fled after the second attack.

He said: “I did not get off the floor until I got to the front door, on my backside.

“I knew I had to get out of the back garden or I would have died.

“Someone up there gave me strength to push myself to the front door.

“I got off the floor and I got the strength to stand up on and unlock the door.

“I went down the steps of the front door to sit on the pavement so the emergency services could find me.”

Mr Sales was able to call 999 and was rushed to hospital.

He spent six weeks in a coma.

He told the court: “I am not so good on my legs anymore.

“I was stabbed in the heart, in my back, my kidneys, my shoulder – he chipped the bone it was so fierce.”

Mr Sales is partly paralysed down the left side of his face and is having operations to have weights installed in his face to help his eye open and close as a result of his injuries.

Flash Ashley Day, 46, of Rose Allen Avenue, Colchester, Scott Moffat, 49, of Colchester Road, Manningtree, and a teenage girl from Colchester who cannot be named, deny, conspiring to murder Mr Sales.

It is alleged Day and Moffat were involved in hiring Hynes, of Long Road, Lawford, as a hitman to kill Mr Sales so Day could inherit up to £200,000 from his stepfather victim.

Hynes has already admitted attempted murder.

  • The trial continues.

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A POEM about death was left on the matrimonial bed of a stabbing victim.

John Sales was shown the poem by police when he woke up in hospital.
It had allegedly been signed by his stepson Paul Day, who had died two years before.

It was left on the bed Mr Sales had shared with his wife, Josephine, but which he had not used since her death.

The jury yesterday heard about a physical row between Mr Sales and Ashley Day a few years before the attack.

When Mr Sales’ wife, and defendant Ashley Day’s mother, Josephine, died her house went to Mr Sales.

A few years later a letter was left at the crematorium for Mr Sales to find claiming his wife would be “disappointed” with him for not giving the house to her sons.

Mr Sales went to Ashley Day’s house to confront him about the inheritance issue.

He told the jury: “I went there to find out why the letter was written. Words were thrown about. There was a bit of a fracas between me and Ashley.”

The court heard the pair made up quickly and Mr Sales said this was the only time they had discussed the inheritance.

The prosecution claim Day was part of a conspiracy to murder Mr Sales to get an inheritance.

Brian Reece, prosecuting, claimed Day wanted his inheritance but Mr Sales was not sure Day even knew whether he would inherit anything because his will had been kept secret.

Day was actually due to inherit at least 40 per cent, which may have raised to 60 per cent, of the inheritance including part of the Hythe Hill house, valued at £240,000.