A jury heard yesterday how a grandmother made a desperate 911 call after her grand-daughter allegedly stabbed her boyfriend to death.

Andrina Tamara Smith denies murdering Edward Allan (Sleepy) Dill by plunging a knife through a door and into his neck after he gave her what prosecutors describe as a slap.

Ms Francis, who lived with Smith, 26, told how she opened her own bedroom door to a knock in the early hours of October 16, 2006, to find a bleeding Mr. Dill, 35.

"He said 'call an ambulance, I've been cut'. He was holding his neck," she said. "The blood was coming out all through his fingers. He was trying to hold his neck and the blood was just spouting out."

She called 911 while a neighbour attempted to stem the bleeding as Mr. Dill lay on the front doorstep.

Screaming could be heard in the background of the tape as Ms Francis asked the 911 operator for an ambulance urging: "Can it come as fast as it can? This guy's going to die if not."

She was advised to apply pressure to Mr. Dill's neck. After a female voice on the tape screamed: "He's not dead is he, he's all right?" the operator told Ms Francis: "What you need to do is calm those people down. It doesn't make sense for them to carry on like that."

A female jury member appeared visibly upset after hearing the tape, prompting defence lawyer Charles Richardson to draw this to the attention of Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves.

Ms Francis went on to explain how she lived in an apartment at Cedar Park with Smith and Smith's daughters aged nine and one — the youngest fathered by Mr. Dill. She described Mr. Dill as Smith's boyfriend, who sometimes stayed at the apartment but was a "very jealous" person who hit her.

On the night of October 15, 2006, Ms Francis was at home with her great-grandchildren as Smith had gone out. She checked on the baby at one point and saw Mr. Dill in the room that Smith and the infant shared.

Ms Francis said Smith returned home around 12.30 a.m. to 1 a.m. on October 16. She subsequently heard a noise — which she claimed was Smith being hit.

"I heard Andrina screaming in her bedroom. I heard the door slam. I got up, went outside my bedroom door, and I saw Andrina standing in the hallway. She was crying. I noticed that the side of her face was red and I asked her what happened, and she told me she was OK," she said.

In his opening speech to the jury on Monday, Crown Prosecutor Carrington Mahoney claimed Mr. Dill slapped his girlfriend during an argument that night.

Responding to questions from defence lawyer Charles Richardson yesterday, Ms Francis said she did not like the way Mr. Dill treated Smith, who on many occasions appeared bruised and with swollen eyes after arguments with him.

Mr. Richardson asked: "And being a concerned grandmother, you would ask her about these things?"

Using Mr. Dill's nickname, Ms Francis replied: "She just said Sleepy did it."

She told the jury she advised her granddaughter more than once to get away from Mr. Dill — and told him to stop hitting her.

She agreed with Mr. Richardson that the boyfriend was a "very jealous" person, with him and Smith arguing over her going out.

Referring to a female voice on the 911 tape, Mr. Richardson asked Ms Francis if during that call she told Smith: "I'm not blaming you, but every time you go out and get drunk..."

Ms Francis said: "I told her every time she went out, this happens. Every time she went out there was a fight."

The jury also heard from Ms Francis' brother Gerald Smith, who shared the same Cedar Park apartment. He said he heard Smith and Mr. Dill having an argument while he was in his bedroom watching TV. He described "thumping, bumping against her bedroom door — like somebody was hitting the door".

He added: "I could hear Andrina but her voice sounded muted, like someone had a hand on her mouth".

The case continues.