A Co Armagh man accused of stabbing a shopkeeper twice in a racially motivated hate crime has been arrested after leaving his details behind in the shop.
A police officer told the magistrates court in Derry that the 24-year-old who allegedly stabbed the shopkeeper in the early hours of Sunday was arrested after a letter addressed to him was found in a rucksack he left behind.
Before the court was Daniel Murphy from Moyraverty Meadows in Craigavon. He denies wounding the shopkeeper by stabbing him to the left shoulder and to the lower left side of his back.
He also denies possessing a knife and stealing a £2 bottle of soft drink. The offences are alleged to have occurred both inside and outside the Bus Stop Store at Foyle Street close to the city centre.
The police witness told District Judge Michael Ranaghan that “the incident is being treated as a racially motivated hate crime. He told him to get out of the country and to get back to where he came from”.
The officer said police were tasked to the shop in the early hours of Sunday morning after the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service reported they were treating a 27-year-old man who had been stabbed on Foyle Street.
One of the stabbings chipped the victim’s left shoulder bone and the second stabbing inflicted a shallow slice wound. There was blood inside and outside the shop as well as on the victim’s clothing.
The police found a rucksack inside the shop containing the letter to the defendant. They also examined CCTV footage of the incidents inside and outside the shop after which they circulated a description of the defendant to police patrols.
A short time later the defendant was found prone on a footpath in nearby Carlisle Road.
“He had no obvious injuries but he was covered in blood. He said he’d been struck by a car,” the officer said.
The shopkeeper told the police that the defendant entered his shop and started acting in an erratic and strange manner.
They became involved in a scuffle during which he was stabbed twice. The victim said he was unaware that the defendant had a knife until several members of the public who intervened to help him told him about the weapon.
Opposing bail the police witness said the defendant was currently under a suspended sentence which had been imposed last January and he was also on probation following another assault last July.
Refusing bail the District Judge said the alleged assault was “very much to the upper end. It will probably to on indictment to the Crown court. Bail is refused for risk of further offending and for failing to comply with court bail conditions”.
The defendant was remanded in custody until November 7.