A tenant at a house where a couple died from stab wounds and two others suffered knife injuries has told how he was settling down to watch EastEnders when violence erupted.

Terry Humphrys had just made a cup of coffee in the kitchen and took it to his room at the house in Dickens Avenue, Canterbury, on March 29 this year when he heard a heated argument.

When he went to investigate, he was confronted with the bloody scene.

He said trouble started when Simon Gorecki shouted out from the bathroom while having a shower and Christian Foster responded: “Shut up, you ******* mug.”

Turning a tap on in the kitchen, he said, caused the temperature to either go cold or hot, adding: “We all know that.”

“It was before EastEnders,” he told the jury at Maidstone Crown Court. “I heard the sound of the front door, as if there were visitors. I heard a lot of arguing.

“I heard Foster’s voice. He has got a very distinctive voice. It must have been outside my room. His voice sounded very aggressive.

“There were multiple voices. It was arguing back and forth - insults to each other. I heard a woman’s voice. It was quite a calm voice.

“I went out of my room because it escalated. I wanted to know what was happening.”

Mr Humphrys went on to describe seeing serious injuries to Mr Gorecki and his partner Natasha Sadler.

Christian, a 54-year-old mechanic, is accused of stabbing Mr Gorecki, 48, and Ms Sadler, 40, to death and wounding her soldier son Connaugh Harris, 20, and a 16-year-old boy.

Prosecutor Philip Bennetts QC said Mr Gorecki, who was 5ft 6in tall, was stabbed five times, four of the wounds being to his back.

Ms Sadler, who attended Hartsdown school in Margate, had several wounds, one of which entered above her left eyebrow and “followed down” inside her lower jaw.

Mr Gorecki, a former fishmonger at the Goods Shed in Canterbury, died as a result of a collapsed right lung and Ms Sadler from a wound to her heart.

Mr Humphrys said he saw Mr Gorecki coming down the stairs holding his lower back and saying: “He just stabbed me.”

“I saw blood coming from his fingers,” he continued. “I went back to my room to get my phone to ring the ambulance. I didn’t realise how bad it was until I walked out of my room.

“Simon was sitting in the hallway. I realised it was very serious.”

He saw Ms Sadler was bleeding profusely from her head. She also had a wound to her chest.

“I got a towel and tried to put pressure on it to try to save her life,” he said. “She appeared to be losing consciousness quite rapidly.”

Mr Humphyrs added: “I didn’t actually see the incident. I can obviously guess. I didn’t see any weapons.”

Questioned by Rajiv Menon QC, defending, he said: “I assume the argument was to do with the shower incident. Foster was irritating everyone.

“I would get angry in the shower as well if someone turned on the tap and it was freezing cold. You respect people when they are in the shower.”

He added: “I was just there in the aftermath.”

Christian denies two charges of murder and two of wounding with intent, claiming self-defence.

The trial continues.