A 21-YEAR-OLD accused of murdering Rob Knox has finished his evidence at the Old Bailey today (Feb 24).

Karl Bishop is also accused of wounding five other people following a melee outside the Metro Bar, Station Road, Sidcup, in the early hours of May 24 last year.

During the trial, prosecutor Brian Altman asked Bishop why he had gone back to his house to pick up two knives after an earlier fight with Mr Knox and his friends outside the bar that evening.

Mr Altman asked him: "Does the sort of red mist come down?"

The defendant replied: "It has been known."

Mr Altman said: "The truth, Mr Bishop, is that you armed yourself with those knives because you were going to show them down there who was who."

He went on: "To settle your score with them in a way which you find entirely acceptable - with knives."

Bishop replied: "No, that was not my aim at all."

The defendant said: "You show knives to people, they are normally quite scared. I would be."

Bishop denied that he was after anyone at the bar and had merely armed himself to scare people.

But Mr Altman said: "You were a man on a mission weren't you? You were determined to see through what you had started."

During the melee, the defendant admitted he may have threatened to stab anyone who came near but said: "I don't believe that I was goading to that extent."

Mr Altman told him: "You knew that your going down there would be like putting a firework in a load of ammunition."

Bishop insisted that he was the one being attacked but conceded that he was "partly responsible" for the events that night.

Mr Altman said Bishop was swinging the knives "like a maniac, like a lunatic - swinging at anyone and everyone who came close to you".

Asked why he did not go to ground, Bishop replied: "If I went to the ground I could have been the one dead."

Later he said: "I did get attacked but I'm not the victim. I'm not the only victim.

"They were just all attacking me at once. And I had a knife and it got used."

Mr Altman told the court that within 90 seconds Bishop had inflicted 10 stab wounds on five people.

Bishop, of Beaver Lodge, Carlton Road, Sidcup, denies murder and five counts of wounding with intent and says he was acting in self-defence.

The trial continues.