A WORKINGTON man answered a knock on his back door late at night and was confronted by a hooded attacker brandishing an axe and a knife, a jury heard.

In the ensuing struggle, Carlisle Crown Court was told, householder Lee Iceton was stabbed in the legs and an arm, and suffered a serious leg injury, while his partner Colleen McCrickard – said to have disarmed the attacker – was bitten and stabbed.

Tony Joynes, 41, denies intentionally causing Mr Iceton grievous bodily harm and he denies deliberately wounding Ms McCrickard.

The defendant said he went to Mr Iceton’s Coniston Drive home in Workington to buy cocaine and carried weapons because he feared people involved in drugs.

Prosecuting barrister Geoffrey Lowe said Mr Iceton and Ms McCrickard were at home just after midnight on August 21 last year when they heard a knock on their door. “Mr Iceton went to that door and he was faced by a male dressed all in black,” he said.

“His face was covered in a balaclava, or a snood, and he was wearing latex gloves. He was carrying an axe.”

As he struggled with the man, Mr Iceton fell, and then shouted for help, warning that the man had an axe. Ms McCrickard intervened, but the attacker struck her and bit her, eventually dropping the knife, which she threw into a neighbour’s garden, said Mr Lowe.

As she did this, she pulled off the man’s hood. The barrister said: “That person – there’s no doubt about it, and it is accepted – was Tony Joynes. He was the man all in black. She said what’s all this about?

“It’s alleged the defendant said words to the effect: ‘The scousers have sent me.” After this, Joynes had escaped, said the barrister.”

Mr Iceton suffered stab wounds and a serious ankle fracture. When he saw his attacker’s face, he immediately recognised Joynes, he said. He heard the defendant say he would go to jail for this, said Mr Lowe.

The barrister said Joynes arrived as described – wearing latex gloves and a hood – so he would not be identified, or leave any DNA. The barrister said: “He went to those premises wearing gloves and a mask to attack these people for reasons which clearly led to extreme violence being used.”

In his evidence, Mr Iceton said the defendant approached him carrying the axe. “I pushed him out on to the decking,” he said.”He said: “There was a struggle: I was trying to get the axe but he wasn’t letting go.”

He slipped on the decking, hurting his leg. That was when he shouted for help. Ms McCrickard pulled the defendant down, he said. He heard her tell Joynes: “Don’t stab me!”

Questioned by Brendan Burke, for Joynes, Mr Iceton accepted serving time in jail for conspiring to supply drugs in 2013 and said he had met Joynes in prison. But he denied any involvement in dealing drugs in August last year when Joynes visited his home. “I hadn’t spoken to Tony in seven months,” he said.

The trial continues.