A KNIFE attacker tried to murder a man after he found him with his topless ex-girlfriend, who had been getting a fake tan applied.
Graham Meikle burst in on George Carr and Susan Airlie in a bedroom and shouted: "Look at my bird. Some mate you are."
Meikle, 42, repeatedly stabbed Mr Carr in the chest with a knife with the blade snapping and the tip of it pinning a duvet to th
e wounded man's body.
Angry Meikle told Miss Airlie to get dressed and the frightened woman complied and left the house with the attacker.
Meikle later told a woman he wanted the victim "done with thefts". He added: "He's still got half my blade in him."
The knife attacker, who has 47 previous convictions and has been detained in the high security State Hospital at Carstairs in the past, may now face a life sentence for his latest crime.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Miss Airlie had a relationship with Meikle but left him days before the murder bid and moved back in with former boyfriend Mr Carr, 59.
Advocate depute Simon Collins said the woman and Mr Carr were in the bedroom of his home in Muirhouse Parkway, Edinburgh, on January 3 this year after midnight.
"Mr Carr was applying fake tanning lotion to Miss Airlie while she was sitting on the bed. She had removed the top half of her clothing to enable this to be done," he said.
Another couple were in the living room when they heard an outside door panel being kicked in. Meikle crawled through the gap dressed in black and wearing gloves and armed with a knife.
He opened the door to the bedroom. Miss Airlie was sitting on the bed, topless, waiting on her tan to dry while Mr Carr was lying on the bed under a duvet.
When Meikle began shouting, Mr Carr shouted back that Miss Airlie was his "bird" and she had left the accused, before he was stabbed.
Mr Collins said: "The accused is a man with a lengthy criminal record, particularly for violent offending."
"Angered by the break up of his relationship with Miss Airlie and her taking up again with Mr Carr, he armed himself with a knife and went to the scene to find her," said the prosecutor.
Mr Collins said: "Meikle broke into the flat and enraged by the circumstances in which he found Miss Airlie in the bedroom, he stabbed Mr Carr, intending to kill him."
"That he did not do so was largely a result of good fortune on Carr's part, the deeper of the two stab wounds not penetrating the body cavity and the knife then breaking before further injuries could be inflicted," he said. Meikle, of Ferry Road Avenue, in Edinburgh, then managed to evade the police for nearly 48 hours. They were also seeking him in connection with a further three investigations.
During his spell of freedom Meikle told one witness that he had "plugged" Mr Carr. He said: "I'm going to get him done with robbery 'cos he's got my blade."
He was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and found to have two stab wounds one of which was four cms deep, but had gone underneath the skin rather than into the chest cavity.
Meikle admitted attempting to murder Mr Carr by repeatedly stabbing him on the body with a knife to his injury and permanent disfigurement.
Defence counsel Stephen O'Rourke said Meikle is currently being prescribed powerful anti-psychotic medication.
Lord Emslie said he would call for a full risk assessment to be carried out on Meikle who has 12 convictions for assault and two for assault and robbery.
The making of such an assessment can lead to the court deciding to impose an order for lifelong restriction on a violent or sex offender.
Under such an order a judge fixes a jail sentence but any future release is then determined by the parole board. If an offender is freed he is kept under continuing supervision.
The judge ordered that Meikle should be remanded in custody to await sentence.
The full article contains 699 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
