A 21-YEAR-OLD accused of murdering Rob Knox said he did not intend to wound anyone and was using his knives to "scare people".

Karl Bishop told the Old Bailey today (Feb 23) that following a previous fight outside the Metro Bar, in Station Road, Sidcup, he had gone home to get two knives from his kitchen drawer.

But the defendant said he had no memory of the alleged stabbings that followed on May 24, which left five people wounded and Mr Knox dead.

After approaching the bar and speaking to a bouncer that night, Bishop told the court: "I was sort of half regretting what I was doing."

He said he was going to go home but people began shouting at him from the bar smoking area, and instantly surrounded him by the front doors.

Bishop said: "They were just screaming, they were chucking bottles at me - they were just going mad."

He said he only took a knife out after a bottle was thrown at him but put both blades away after the crowd yelled at him to do so.

Bishop was then punched in the face by Mr Knox's 16-year-old friend Andrew Dormer and told the court: "As he did that I took the knives out and I don't really remember the rest."

He said: "As far as I can remember I was always going backwards and just swinging."

The defendant went on: "I didn't intend to wound anyone at all but they attacked me."

He said: "There were no other options. They ran at me, attacked me and had me surrounded at one point."

Bishop said: "My intention was to scare people away from me and then as they kept running at me the knife was catching them. They kept running into it."

In cross-examination, prosecution lawyer Brian Altman asked why Bishop had never mentioned self-defence to the arresting officers.

He also pointed out that Bishop had said "sweet" on being charged and asked to be taken straight to Belmarsh Prison.

Mr Altman said: "You couldn't have cared less about what just took place could you?"

Bishop, who claimed he had drunk up to eight whisky and cokes that evening, maintained that he had been attacked.

He said: "I showed them the knives. They didn't have to attack me - they knew the police were on their way."

Mr Altman said to him: "You were doing what you had set out to do."

But Bishop replied: "If I was going down there to stab people why was I standing by the wall?"

Previously, he had told the court how earlier that evening he had been punched outside the Metro Bar by Mr Knox's friend Sammy Mehmet and was then attacked by five or six people.

Bishop then went home and got back into his house through a kitchen window and went straight to the knife drawer.

He said: "I took two because two is scarier than one and I was angry at the time."

Asked by Mr Bourne why he took the knives, Bishop said: "I just wanted to scare who was down there."

Bishop said that walking back to the bar near Station Parade he was approached by Mr Knox's younger brother Jamie after an argument with someone else.

Bishop said he pulled out the knives then, telling the court: "Once you pull out two knives then no one sensible is going to run at you are they?"

He said a friend of the Knox brothers, Callum Turner, then drove a car right at him and the defendant told him to get out the car, holding the knives out, before Bishop went back to the bar.

Bishop, of Beaver Lodge, Carlton Road, Sidcup, denies murder and five counts of wounding with intent.

The trial continues.