TWO victims of the random and brutal knife attacks in Hereford - at the hands of serial killer Joanna Dennehy - today relived their ordeals in court.
Both April 2 survivors – Robin Bereza and John Rogers – described a dead-eyed attacker “going about business”; stabbing them repeatedly and remorselessly as they feared for their life.
Cambridge Crown Court heard earlier that after murdering three men in Cambridgeshire, Dennehy and her alleged accomplice – seven-foot-tall former Kington man Gary Stretch – drove 140 miles to Hereford searching for victims after she told him “I want to have my fun”.
The court was shown graphic images of the injuries sustained by Dennehy’s first Hereford victim, retired firefighter Mr Bereza, who was flown to hospital in Birmingham with a punctured lung and a broken arm.
He told the court how, out walking on Westfaling Street, he was struck twice before he knew what was happening.
He said: "A car stopped. I didn’t think any more of it.
"I felt a blow to my right shoulder. I turned around and saw this lady -
she just stared straight through me.
"I saw the lady with that thing in her hands, I didn't know what it
was," he added.
"I got worried then, frightened. I said: 'what are you doing?'
"She said 'I'm hurting you, I'm going to f****** kill you'."
With blood seeping through his jacket, the 63-year-old tried to fight her off, running into the road.
Then a “big gentleman” gestured from a car to Dennehy and sped off.
Mr Bereza was flown to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, in critical condition, returning to his family home in Marshall Close to recover weeks later.
He was joined in Queen Elizabeth by Dennehy’s second victim, John Rogers, who required life-saving surgery having been left to die on a Hunderton footpath.
Again Dennehy attacked at random, and from behind; Mr Rogers told the court he felt a sudden punch in the back while walking just off Golden Post.
"I turned around and saw the woman who stabbed me just standing there,"
he told the court. "She started stabbing me in the chest."
When he asked her: "What's this all about?", she looked at the blood now pouring from his stab wounds and said: "I better do some more", the court heard.
"She didn't seem to be showing any emotion," Rogers added .
"She didn't seem to be enjoying herself. She just seemed like she was
going about business."
Mr Rogers said he fell to the ground but the attack continued as he
drifted in and out of consciousness.
"As I lay there I thought 'this is where I'm going to die'," he said.
Dennehy, of Orton Goldhay, Peterborough, pleaded guilty to three murders
at the Old Bailey in November and is in custody awaiting sentencing.
She also admitted preventing the lawful and decent burial of all three
victims and two charges of attempted murder.
Gary ‘Stretch’ Richards, 47, of Riseholme, Orton Goldhay,
Peterborough, has denied three charges of preventing the lawful burial
and two counts of attempted murder.
The case continues.
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