by Keith Hunt

A mother and her partner suffered serious stab wounds after a family feud boiled over into violence, a court heard.

Sharon Taylor told how she was knifed through her left nipple and under her breast and suffered a punctured lung. Kenton Hover was wounded in the back and part of his bowel had to be removed.

Horse trainer Miss Taylor's half-brother Nicky Wiggins, 36, is alleged to have stabbed both her and Mr Hover, a boxing judge. Wiggins's sister Anita, 30, is accused of also stabbing Mr Hover.

Lucy Luttman, prosecuting, said there was "no love lost" between the two factions of the families. They did not speak to each other and relations were acrimonious and fragile.

Trouble started when Miss Taylor's daughter Elizabeth, 23, telephoned her on the evening of May 14 last year and told her that Nicky and Anita Wiggins's sister Tina had assaulted her at the Charcoal Grill kebab shop in Sittingbourne High Street.

Miss Taylor told her daughter to get a taxi home. But Elizabeth, known as Lizzie, rang back and said Tina and Anita Wiggins were starting on her.

Miss Taylor and Mr Hover went to a car park behind Argos to pick up Elizabeth, who was there with her boyfriend Brett Stacey and his brother Gary.

They ended up in William Street at the former home of Miss Taylor and Nicky Wiggins's mother. Tina wanted to go there to retrieve a Chanel bracelet she had lost during the earlier trouble.

Brett Stacey was confronted by a man and they started fighting, Miss Luttman told Maidstone Crown Court. Elizabeth tried to help him and was set upon by Anita and Tina Wiggins in an alleyway.

Miss Taylor heard screaming and saw Elizabeth on the ground and the two other women punching and kicking her. She picked her daughter up and then saw Nicky Wiggins walking towards her.

"He had something long and pointed in his hand," said the prosecutor.

"She stood between him and her daughter. She felt what she thought were two punches to the left of her body in the breast area.

"It left her highly breathless and leaning against a wall. He grabbed her wig and threw it to the ground. She noticed there was blood bubbling from her top.

"In fact, she had not been punched. The prosecution case is she had been stabbed twice by him."

Mr Hover went over and tried to take the knife from Wiggins. He felt a "punch" to the stomach that took his breath away. He saw blood coming from his stomach.

He heard Wiggins gloating: "I have stabbed you. I have just ------- stabbed you." Both men suffered cuts to their hands in the struggle.

As Mr Hover backed away, he felt a sharp pain in his back. Anita Wiggins had appeared with a weapon and stabbed him, said Miss Luttman.

Miss Taylor told her family to get in the car and they drove to nearby Quealy estate agents car park in Park Road. Miss Taylor and Mr Hover were bleeding heavily.

Two ambulances arrived and they were taken to Medway Hospital. Miss Taylor was treated for a punctured lung and damaged diaphragm and needed keyhole surgery. She was in hospital for 13 days.

Mr Hover was more seriously injured. He had a 2cm cut to his abdomen and a 1.5cm cut to his back. A section of his small bowel had to be removed. He was detained for 10 days.

Nicky Wiggins, of Laburnham Place, Sittingbourne, denies wounding Miss Taylor and Mr Hover with intent. Anita Wiggins, formerly of Millfield Road, Faversham, now of Shortstown, Bedford, denies wounding Mr Hover with intent and, together with Tina Wiggins, of Faversham, assaulting Elizabeth Taylor.

The trial continues.