A stabbing victim told a Supreme Court jury yesterday how he pleaded with his attacker to tell him why he was trying to kill him in the toilet of a Dockyard night-club.

Jelani (Roots) Butterfield, 25, told the court he was left in a pool of his own blood after a vicious attack left him life-threatening injuries, a blood clot the size of a cricket ball and the loss of the use of two fingers.

Brandon (Cal) Barnes Brockett, 21, of Farm Lane, Warwick pleaded not guilty to attempting to murder Mr. Butterfield and denied wounding him with intent to cause grievous bodily harm at Club Malabar on December 23, 2002.

In court yesterday, Mr. Butterfield said he arrived at the nightclub early that night to help set up sound equipment. At around 2.30 a.m. Mr. Butterfield left the dance-floor and entered the men?s toilet. He said he had his back to the entrance when ?all of a sudden I felt a burning to the left side of my back in my kidney area... I keeled over and screamed real loud because I was in so much pain.

?As I was falling to the ground I saw a guy standing over me with a knife. I was on the ground swerving ? trying to get away from him. I managed to grab hold of the knife by the blade.?

He said his attacker then pulled the knife ?across the palm of my hand. As he pulled it out of my hand he stabbed me in my (right) shoulder ? in my armpit area?.

The victim desperately asked his attacker: ?What for? What did I do??

?But he was looking for a place to stab again,? he said. ?My body went numb after that...I could only move my right leg. I could not move anything else. He saw I was lifeless and ran out?.

Mr. Butterfield said he could not move and had to be lifted out of the bathroom, which Club Malabar bouncer Leslie Trew confirmed.

Mr. Trew said he was at the front door of the club when he saw Mr.Butterfield go into the bathroom.

?I heard people rushing in to the bathroom and saw Cal (Brockett) come out of the bathroom calm and collected like nothing happened with a red stain on the bottom of his shirt?, Mr. Trew said.

When he went inside, he saw Mr. Butterfield lying in a pool of his own blood.

A mass of people were already inside, he said, as word of the stabbing raced across the dance-floor.

People picked Mr. Butterfield off the bathroom floor and he was taken to an ambulance.

Crown counsel Wayne Caines asked Mr. Butterfield and Mr. True to point to who they saw in the bathroom and both men pointed to the defendant.

Both Mr. Trew and Mr. Butterfield said there was a lot of light inside the bathroom and identified the defendant in an identification parade at Police Headquarters on January 9, 2003.

But defence lawyer Victoria Pearman said there was a history of ?bad blood? between the victim and her client.

Under further cross-examination, Mr. Butterfield said he was wearing a flick-knife to ?cut wires? for the sound equipment. But he said the knife never left the pouch on his belt.

Expert witness, Dr. Joseph Froncioni said he operated on the stabbing victim at 4.40 a.m. at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Beneath the ?life-threatening? four centimetre cut to the victim?s armpit was a blood clot the size of a cricket ball he said.

There was also a jagged ten centimetre laceration to the victim?s left hand that severed the nerves in the little finger and ring finger.

He called it a ?very serious injury with regard to the function of the hand? and it was ?consistent with grasping the blade of a knife that was drawn out of his hand?.

But the surgeon said the stab wound to the back was the most serious injury due to the location of two ?very important? veins and arteries which comprised ?the entire blood supply to his upper extremities?.

And he concluded the nature of the weapon used was a ?very sharp and narrow object?.

The Department of Public Prosecution?s Consultant was Kulandra Ratneser.

The trial resumes this morning before Justice Carlisle Greaves.