A MAN tried to stab a man in the back of a police car after planning to kill him.

Barry Mattingley, 70 and of no fixed abode, told officers he ‘wished he had stabbed his victim and was on a murder charge’.

Prosecuting, James Tucker told Bournemouth Crown Court how Mattingley, who was drunk, went to his victim’s flat in Christchurch Road, Bournemouth, on Friday, April 12.

Mattingley had threatened his victim with violence, after he said he was spreading untrue rumours about him.

“On that day, the front door to the victim’s flat was unlocked. This defendant simply walked in through it,” Mr Tucker said.

“He had not seen the victim for two years.

“The defendant produced an eight-inch knife in his right hand that had a plastic cover. Mr Mattingley removed the knife from the plastic with a dramatic gesture.”

Mattingley’s victim was sat on his sofa having cut his own hair, and was waiting for bleach to bed in, with the defendant then beginning to ‘jab’ him with the knife, with an ‘angry look’ on his face.

The victim realised Mattingley planned to lunge at him and tried to disarm him.

He was able to flee to the nearby corner shop, where he called the police.

When officers arrived, he got into the back of the police car.

Mattingley had not followed him from the flat but had taken £35 in cash.

When Mattingley spotted him in the car, he opened the door and tried to stab him again, before officers used PAVA spray on him and arrested him.

Later that day, Mattingley told officers: “I wish I was sat here on a murder charge; I wish I had stabbed him.”

Mr Tucker said the defendant had told officers that he was hoping to kill his victim and that he had been planning to do so since the previous day, adding: “If I get out of here tonight I will go and kill him.”

Mitigating, Richard Martin said Mattingley had pleaded guilty, and that he was a ‘chronic alcoholic’.

Mr Martin said the defendant felt aggrieved that rumours were being spread by his victim.

He added that at no stage was there the sense that Mattingley denied what had happened, even though he could not remember it due to his intoxication at the time.

Sentencing, Judge Susan Evans KC said the threats made by Mattingley had worried his victim to the point where he sent videos to friends saying that he would be to blame if anything happened to him.

Judge Evans said: “He was frightened for his life, understandably.”

She added: “You showed no remorse. You told the police that you had been planning it since the day before and wished you’d done it.”

Mattingley was sentenced to six years in prison at the hearing on Monday, July 15.