Brandon (Cal) Barnes Brockett told jurors yesterday he took his eight-inch kitchen knife into a crowded night-club because he did not want to get hurt anymore.

The 21-year-old, of Farm Lane, Warwick denies causing grievous bodily harm to Somerset Eagles footballer Jelani (Roots) Butterfield in the Club Malabar toilets in the early morning of December 23, 2002.

Brockett was originally charged with attempting to murder Mr. Butterfield but Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves ruled the defendant had no case to answer on Monday and reduced the charges.

During cross-examination in Supreme Court yesterday, Crown counsel Wayne Caines asked Brockett why he had the knife in his back pocket.

?I didn?t want to get hurt no more,? he replied. ?Maybe if someone sees it. They would think twice about bothering me...I had it on me for emergencies?.

Brockett told the 11-woman, one-man jury he acted in self defence and that the laceration in Mr. Butterfield?s back occurred during a struggle.

But last month Mr. Butterfield told the jury he was stabbed in the back facing a toilet cubicle, and not in a struggle. Brockett said yesterday he felt his knife go into Butterfield. But Butterfield kept coming at him.

?He just kept going. I tried to push him away from me...He gripped the knife after we were unlocked.?

Brockett said he saw no blood ? ?I was not concentrating on that, I was concentrating on getting away?.

And he said he ?pricked? Butterfield in the shoulder when he came towards him again.

The reason he did not leave the toilet as soon as he saw Mr. Butterfield was because he said he needed to use the bathroom.

When Mr. Caines asked Brockett why he returned to the same night-club where he testified he was punched in the mouth with brass knuckles and had a knife drawn on him weeks earlier by friends of Mr. Butterfield, he said he went up there to ?have fun? and ?did not know they were going to be there?.

Although he said he did not normally carry a knife, he admitted to doing so a few times prior to that night.

And Brockett admitted to later throwing his kitchen knife in the water because he was scared and didn?t know what to do.

Brockett hitchhiked back to his Warwick home with someone he did not know because he was shaken up and in a hurry to leave. He did not tell Police about what happened because ?it would have made matters worse still?.

?If I went to Police they might have kept on attacking me,? he said.

The first time he spoke to Police about the stabbing when they came looking for him at home, he said.

?I put it to you you didn?t go to Dockyard to have a good time with friends, you went to Club Malabar to get revenge,? Mr. Caines alleged. Brockett said it was not true.

Defence lawyer Victoria Pearman said her client did not tell Club Malabar staff about the stabbing in the bathroom before he left the premises because he thought they saw it.

On February 22, Dr. Joseph Froncioni said when he operated on Mr. Butterfield he found a blood clot the size of a cricket ball under a four centimetre cut to the victim?s armpit.

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

The case has been postponed several times because jurors or counsel have fallen sick, but closing arguments are expected today.