A victim was hit with a beer bottle and stabbed repeatedly in a late-night attack at a Stevenage flat, a jury heard today.

Jay Williams was punched, struck with a Corona bottle on the head and knifed at a flat in Spencer Way.

He received medical treatment in the street before being taken to hospital to be treated for six lacerations.

Two Irishmen living in Stevenage – Pearce McGinnity, 27, of Parkers Field, and Roy O’Donoghue, 36, of Ditchmore Lane – deny attempted murder and an alternative charge of wounding with intent on April 9 last year.

A jury at St Albans Crown Court heard that Mr McGinnity had previously lived at a woman’s flat in Spencer Way.

After drinking beers with his co-defendant and another man at his flat in Harrow Court, a Stevenage tower block, he decided to collect his belongings that night.

In a police interview read to the jury, Mr McGinnity denied delivering four punches to Jay Williams – who now lived at the Spencer Way flat – before saying to Mr O’Donoghue: “Go on, do him”.

Mr McGinnity said when he arrived at the flat in Spencer Way the woman started shouting at him, and that he said he took his two bags of stuff and left.

He told the officer that his co-defendant – who he called Paddy – then ran past him.

“I heard a bottle smash and two lots of screaming,” he said.

In a police interview, Mr O’Donoghue said blood on his jeans was caused by him falling off his bike at the rear of Stevenage’s Pets at Home store.

He said that after the bike fall he had “gone in and out of consciousness”, saying his head had been “all over the place”.

He said he knew Mr McGinnity as they were both Celtic football fans, but that he said he did not know Jay Williams and knew nothing about the attack carried out on him.

He said he had just been drinking all day on the Saturday.

Prosecutor Daniel Higgins played the jury CCTV which showed Mr Williams calling at a neighbouring address for help. Members of the public stayed with him until paramedics arrived.

Mr Williams was taken to hospital, where he was treated for six lacerations to the back.

The case continues.