A VIOLENT Irish criminal desperately tried to fight back after he was chased and stabbed to death by three killers, a court heard.
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.
Witnesses to the attack included a boy who was walking his Alsatian dog 'Major' and a woman living in a nearby flat who recorded part of it on her mobile phone.
Prosecutor Timothy Cray QC said: "The boy was walking his dog in the park and saw a white man being chased by three boys on the opposite side of the road.
"One of the three boys was wearing a red top and was using a large kitchen knife to stab the man on the left side of his body.
"One of the other boys had a small knife that was also being used to stab this man."
The prosecution claim the attacker in the red top was Omar Warner, 18, and his two accomplices were Eduardo Embalo, 18, and Andre Joseph, 25.
Mr McLaughlin was originally from Manorcunningham, County Donegal, and came to Britain as a child with his parents and two siblings.
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.
