Darren Pitt said he remembered his friend Spencer Ellis telling him he was going to kill him, before lunging at him with a kitchen knife.

Pitt told a jury at Winchester Crown Court that he thought he remembered getting the blade off Mr Ellis but could not remember anything else after that.

Dressed in a pinstripe suit and taking the stand for the first time yesterday, Pitt, 34, said: 'That evening Spencer was saying he wanted to kill himself. He was fed up with life, and was saying he wanted to jump off the balcony.

'Spencer went to the kitchen and got a knife. He was messing about with the knife.

'Then he drew it across his throat. He was saying words to the effect that he wanted to kill himself.

'He said he was going to kill me first and came towards me with the knife.

'He lunged at me and I thought he was going to actually kill me.

'I presume I got the knife off him or turned the knife on him. It is all a bit vague as to how I got the knife off him.'

Pitt is accused of stabbing Mr Ellis 22 times during a drunken row on October 5 last year at Pitt's flat in Settlers Close, Landport, Portsmouth.

Mr Ellis, 34, died as a result of two knife wounds which pierced his heart.

Pitt told the jury he had been in a sexual relationship with Mr Ellis at the time of his death.

He also said that Mr Ellis had often been violent towards him and had tried to strangle him on a number of occasions.

Pitt described how on one occasion Mr Ellis had shut him in a cupboard for three hours, and he insisted to the jury that he was neither possessive or jealous of Mr Ellis.

Previously in the trial the court has been told that Pitt allegedly admitted to police officers that he had stabbed Mr Ellis, and that he was a 'Jekyll and Hyde' character when he had been drinking.

Pitt denies murder.

(Proceeding)