A JURY has seen dramatic video footage of a stand-off between police officers and a man who had stabbed a fellow pub-goer in the face on a Wigton street.

As officers tried to persuade Scott Topping to leave his flat on the night of Friday, April 12, the 39-year-old repeatedly told them that he was going to die, and said that police would have to shoot him if they went into his home.

At one point, Topping was heard asking the officers whether the man he stabbed - 21-year-old Robert Pattinson - had died.

"I don't want to know if he hasn't died," says Topping. He said he himself was not afraid of dying.

When the jury returned from their lunch break today, defence barrister Brendan Burke told them that the defendant had chosen to not testify during the trial.

During the morning, the jury had been shown the two knives which the prosecution say Topping carried in King Street, Wigton, on the night when he stabbed Mr Pattinson.

The defendant, of Mulligan's Court, Wigton, has admitted attacking Mr Pattinson and intentionally causing him grievous bodily harm.

But he denies any intention to kill his victim.

The video evidence - recorded on police body cameras - reveal how Topping at times swears loudly at the police officers, and he can be heard yelling: "I'll do what I want. What are you going to do? Nothing. You'll have to shoot me."

He adds: "You'll have to shoot me or I'll stab people."

As the stand-off ended, Topping is seen leaving his flat moments after collecting his pet dog from the upstairs of his home. At the request of the police officers, he also threw a knife out of the window.

He is clearly concerned about his pet, telling officers: "Make sure that dog's all-right."

Further footage shows Topping after his arrest, sitting in police van's cage, and laughing as he is formally arrested and given his legal rights by one of the police officers involved.

In earlier evidence, prosecutor Jeremy Grout-Smith read from a statement made by Mr Pattinson's mother Lisa Dixon, who was punched in the head by Topping outside the Throstle's nest, where she had been having a night out with family members.

She recalled how earlier in the evening the pub's landlady was on pins" because Topping was there.

In her statement, Mrs Dixon said of the landlady: "She told me that he [Topping] is always causing trouble.

"She refused to serve him at Christmas time because of the way he behaved."

The jury also heard from Home Office pathologist Stuart Hamilton.

He examined the medical evidence arising from Mr Pattinson's knife wound, caused as the kitchen knife penetrated through his cheek bone and into the base of his skull.

Some 12.5 cm of the blade was buried in his face and head.

The blade came to rest just millimetres from Mr Pattinson's carotid artery, one of the three arteries supplying blood to the brain. The injury could readily have caused a fatal bleed in the victim's brain, said the doctor. To stab somebody so deeply through those bony structures of the face would have required "severe force," he said.

Mr Grouth-Smith told the jury that Topping, who has yet to give evidence, earlier entered guilty pleas to a common assault on Lisa Dixon; threatening her husband Neil Dixon with an offensive weapon - namely a knife; having an offensive weapon - a knife - in a public place; and affray.

The barrister also read from a report by a drug expert, confirming that the defendant had used cocaine before the stabbing incident.

The expert, Damien Singleton, said that the drug can increase energy, self-confidence, and talkativeness, but a high dose of cocaine may cause paranoia and bizarre behaviour.

The trial continues.