Former Beatle George Harrison thought he had been fatally wounded by a psychotic intruder who believed he was on a mission from God to kill the pop star, a court in Oxford, England, was told on Tuesday.
The jury was told how Harrison and his wife, Olivia, fought with Michael Abram who was armed with a knife and part of a stone sword broken from a statue of St George and the Dragon at the couple's mansion south of the university city of Oxford.
In a statement read to the court, Harrison described tasting blood in his mouth as he lay on his back upstairs in his home and hearing his lung deflate when Mr Abram plunged the knife into his chest. "There was a time during this violent struggle that I truly believed I was dying," he said.
He said he chanted, "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna," at the man in a vain effort to distract him.
Oxford Crown Court heard that three psychiatrists who have examined Mr Abram concluded that he intended to kill Harrison because he believed the star had possessed him. But they also decided that he did not realise he was doing wrong because of these "delusional" beliefs.
There was no dispute, the prosecution said, that Mr Abram, from Liverpool in north-west England and the birthplace of the Beatles, carried out the attack on 30 December last year. But it was up to the jury to decide if his plea that he was not guilty of attempting to kill Harrison and his wife "by reaosn of insanity" should be accepted. According to the prosecution, the defendant believed God had sent him on the murder mission.
Mr Abram, 34, showed no emotion as a statement Harrison gave to police after the attack was read in court.
Harrison, 57, said that he had locked up and joined his wife in bed about 2:10am. He had spent the previous evening visiting his brother and had watched a film at his mansion, which is surrounded by a high security fence.
About 3:20am, Olivia Harrison awakened her husband to say she had heard smashing glass. Her first thought was that a chandelier had fallen but she soon realised that someone was in the house. While Mrs Harrison phoned staff and the police her husband went down to the kitchen and found a window broken. Lying nearby was a stone wing that Harrison recognised from the statue of St George.
He smelt cigarette smoke. He went back upstairs but then came back out on to a gallery that overlooks the ground floor. Glancing down, he saw an intruder in the main hall.
Harrison said: "He stopped in the centre of the room and looked towards me. He started shouting and screaming." The man was yelling: "You get down here." Harrison asked who he was. The man replied: "You know, get down here."
Harrison spotted the knife and the stone sword. "I made the decision to shout back at him to distract him. I looked down and shouted, 'Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna,'" he said.
The tactic did not work and the intruder advanced up the stairs. Knowing that his wife and mother-in-law were in the house Harrison deicded to fight back. Armed only with the "element of surprise" he lunged at Mr Abram.
"My first instinct was to grab for the knife," Harrison said.
"We fell to the floor. I was fending off blows with my hands. He was on top of me and stabbing down at my upper body."
Mrs Harrison came out and began hitting my Abram with a small brass poker. The intruder chased her and grabbed her by the throat.
Harrison said he staggered after his wife and Mr Abram. "I felt exhausted and could feel the strength draining from me," Harrison said. "I vividly remember a deliberate thrust to my chest. I could hear my lung exhaling and had blood in my mouth. I believed I had been fatally stabbed." The wound, one of four, caused the lung to collapse and left Harrison with breathing difficulties. His wife suffered head cuts and bruises.
Giving eveidence from the witness box, Mrs Harrison, 52, said: "There was blood on the walls and on the carpet. There was a moment when I realised we were going to be murdered - I realised that this man was succeeding."
The trial continues.