TANIS Bhandari's best friend broke down in tears as he spoke of the young builder's last moments during a video interview with police, a jury heard.
As members of the public gallery could also be heard to sob, jurors at Plymouth Crown Court watched the interview with Sean Cordon, held on January 2, just a day after his pal's death.
Wincing with pain as he moved, his face sporting fresh bruises and cuts, Mr Cordon struggled to recall the events of the evening.
The court watched as he told the detective he could recall saying goodbye at the entrance of The Kings Arms where he and friends had seen in the new year.
As he spoke of the "great atmosphere" at the pub that night he fought back tears, before saying "I don't remember anything from leaving [the pub] to laying on the floor. I just remember someone with longish hair."
The footage showed him then sobbing into his hands as he revealed he had no recollection of the incident until he was in front of his fatally injured best friend, next to a construction firm in Station Road.
He said Tanis was "bleeding really really badly" and as he asked another friend to race to his nearby home to get his parents, he clutched Tanis, desperately trying to keep him conscious.
He appeared frustrated at his inability to recall with any clarity what had taken place, recognising that he was with his girlfriend Dina Moore and friend Dale Wheeler as they sat with Tanis.
He said: "Tanis said he had been punched in the back, that his back was hurt.
"I asked Dale to run to my house to get my mum and dad. I said to Tanis 'you just sit down mate, you need to sit down, you will be fine, don't worry about it'."
As he described Tanis's last moments of the investigator, Mr Cordon broke down sobbing.
"He just collapsed in my arms, my missus' arms. He just collapsed and we laid him down. He was just gone.
"I was whacking him on the chest, calling him a ****, calling him a ***** to wake him up. I just wanted him to wake up, you know?
"I knew him all my life."
It was only a while later when his girlfriend hugged him that he felt a sharp pain and realised he too had been injured.
He said how at the hospital he was told the knife wound "just missed my spinal cord by 1cm. I was lucky really. It had gone into the muscle."
The only part of the incident Mr Cordon said he could remember was being "laid on the floor" alongside another man "with long hair" whom he was trying to hold onto. He told police he remembered other people jumping on top to hold this other man down, punches being thrown, "shouting and screaming".
"It happened so fast", he said.
At one stage he said he remembered giving a first statement to police at Derriford Hospital, believing there was an "axe or hatchet", although during cross examination by Martin Meeke QC he could no longer recall whether he had seen it or "dreamt it".
Seeking clarification, Mr Meeke asked: "You don't normally dream about axes."
"Before this I didn't," said Mr Cordon. "But since..."
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WITNESS Abigail Williams, aged 19, said she recalled a man heading towards her with an axe as she fell to the floor and scrabbled backwards.
Miss Williams, the girlfriend of Jamie Healy, was video interviewed on January 2, and said she remembered a man asking her for a cigarette on the green near The Kings Arms, which the group had just left.
She told the officer she remembered him pulling a knife out and run up to Tanis, stabbing him "a couple of times".
However, she admitted during the interview she may have become confused about the two men she saw on the green and the weapons they carried.
She said she had only met Tanis for the first time that night and the atmosphere in the pub was "happy".
The girls at the front of the group were confronted by a man in a "navy hoody" with "light facial hair", "dark hair" who appeared "very drugged up, really panicky".
She said he reached inside his zip-up hoody top and pulled out a "10 inch" silver knife.
She said: "It was just so fast."
When asked why she thought he was "drugged up", she replied: "It was the tone of his voice. He was scared, a bit panicky. His eyes didn't look right. Like he was on something."
She said the second man wore a "weird" waterproof jacket with a zipper.
She said the "hoody" man stabbed Tanis, pulling him onto his knife.
She recalled seeing the man arching over Tanis' body as he laid on the floor face down.
She said: "Jamie was panicking, shouting 'that's my friend, that's my friend'.
"I kicked him [the man over Tanis] several times, on the side of his arm and left of his belly."
She told the officer she then saw the other man, who had briefly run off, return.
She said: "He saw me kicking his friend and that's when he came at me with an axe."
She said she fell and "scurried back" to get away as her boyfriend attempted to get between her and the approaching man.
"I thought he was going to kill me.
"Everything was a blur and that's when Jamie got hurt.
"I heard Jamie struggling for breath. He started walking off, saying "Ab, I've been stabbed, Ab, I've been stabbed'."
Asked to clarify clothing and who had what kind of weapon, Miss Williams replied: "I wish I could remember it all perfectly. I was so frightened.
"Jamie was on the floor and I was frightened the man was going to come back and finish him off."
She admitted she had seen images of Pemberton and Williams on Facebook on January 1 and had seen the exchange between Pemberton and Dale Hewitt.
She said: They had an argument and Dale's mum was getting involved. That's when things started getting tense. It was 'meet me at Devonport' and 'I'm going to kill you'."
She said she also saw images of Pemberton and Williams holding knives and a machete on Pemberton's Facebook page.
The court heard how Miss Williams was unable to identify Pemberton at an identity parade the following day.
Williams has pleaded guilty to all charges.
Pemberton denies all charges.
The trial continues.
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