THE partner of Damien McLaughlin told the court how she was 'too late' to stop him being stabbed to death by three masked men.
Damien McLaughlin, 42, was surrounded and knifed in the heart in front of shocked residents in Enfield, north London in April this year.
Mr McLaughlin, who worked as a plumber for Speedy Jet Drainage and lived with his wife and son at their home in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, collapsed next to his van and was pronounced dead at the scene in Exeter Road on the afternoon of April 22.
Mr McLaughlin was originally from Manorcunningham, County Donegal, and came to Britain as a child with his parents and two siblings.
Patricia Lees, who had been in a relationship with the victim for 15 years, said they travelled to the housing estate in Enfield so he could buy crack cocaine.
She waited in his Speedy Jet work van while Mr McLaughlin met a dealer named 'Oz' outside a block of flats.
Ms Lees said she assumed that he had bought the drugs because he returned to the van smiling.
She told jurors: "He was smiling so I got out of the van to let him drive.
"As he is walking towards me his face changed, it went from happy to cross. I could just tell that he had seen something so I looked back and I saw three males behind me.
"Then Damien said to me 'Get in the van' so I got in the van and he walked past me.
"I knew he was in trouble because they had masks on, the three black guys. He looked so vulnerable on his own."
She described one man as wearing a red scarf over his face and another as wearing a mask with 'like a mouthpiece out of it.'
Ms Lees said she started to turn the van around to try and help Mr McLaughlin.
She told the court: "As I got over there it was too late."
Mr McLaughlin first dropped to one knee before collapsing on the ground with a stab wound to the heart.
Ms Lees said: "I seen the three black men in the distance standing there and then he fell. I said 'Get up, get in the van.'"
The court heard two broken knives were found at the scene.
Prosecutor Tim Cray said: "We say that these three men were acting together to carry out the attack.
"They were all doing their best to disguise their appearance with hoodies and masks.
"They chased Damien McLaughlin. There was then the knife fight but three against one wasn't really a contest."
Jurors heard Mr McLaughlin had started taking crack cocaine in around January 2017.
Previously, jurors were told the victim had been ‘in trouble with police for most of his life.'
Mr McLaughlin had been jailed for 15 in 2007 for a series of violent burglaries and was released from prison in 2015.
Mr Cray said: “He was a violent man and he was carrying a knife on the day of his death and he used that knife to fight back and managed to stab Andre Joseph in the face.
“That background doesn’t appear to be connected to the grudge against Andre Joseph.
“It was down to some sort of dealings they were trying to have more recently.”
Embalo, from Tottenham, north London, Warner, of Marshside Close, Lower Edmonton, north London, and Joseph, of no fixed address, all deny murder.
The trial continues.
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