A MAN needed life-saving surgery after he was stabbed in the chest in Southend, a court heard.

Ryan Downs, 24, was stabbed in the town centre and was only saved thanks to medics at Southend and Basildon hospitals.

Yesterday, Anton Copley, 20, of York Road, Southend, appeared at Basildon Crown Court charged with attempted murder.

The court saw CCTV footage showing Mr Downs, from Rayleigh, leaving Mayhem nightclub in Warrior Square with his girlfriend and her friends at about 2am on Sunday, March 16.

At about the same time, footage showed Copley and a friend leaving Dick De Vigne’s, also in Warrior Square.

Both parties, who did not know each other, then made their way to Southchurch Road, where Copley and his friend went into Subway.

When they came out, the prosecution claimed Copley noticed Mr Downs and the two women on the opposite side of the road and exchanged words with them.

The prosecution then alleges Copley walked over to Mr Downs and stabbed him in the chest.

Martin Mulgrew, prosecuting, said: “It was an act of mindless violence, perpetuated on the streets of Southend.

“There were some shouts of a playground nature, exchanged from the two parties across the road and then suddenly Copley arrived with a knife in his hand and stabbed Mr Downs in his chest.

“Without the rapid response of medical staff at first Southend and then Basildon hospitals, Mr Downs would have died.”

Mr Downs suffered a 2.5-inch deep knife wound while Copley and his friend were shown on CCTV running from the scene and down an alleyway between Southchurch Road and Leather Lane.

The prosecution claimed this was where Copley try to discard of the weapon, before picking it up again.

Mr Mulgrewadded: “It was a blatant attempt to divest himself of the knife he had plunged into Mr Downs’s chest.

“We then see him exchange a fewwords of a jocular nature with his friend in Chichester Road and we say that at one point you can see him re-enact what he has just done to Mr Downs.”

Mr Downs was called as a witness on the first day of the trial and was shown the CCTV.

He said that while he remembers turning left out of Mayhem, his next memory is of feeling blood on his torso and taking his T-shirt off to stem the flow.

Copley, who sat in the dockwearing a black suit, white shirt and grey tie, has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The trial continues.