A jealous man who stabbed his love rival has been found guilty of attempted murder.

Peter Barton, 40, from Gillingham, denied the charge and claimed he was a good samaritan who was trying to help Samuel Cook after he had been attacked.

But a jury at Canterbury Crown Court found him guilty and he is now in custody awaiting sentence.

Judge James O’Mahony told Barton he was a highly dangerous man and would be going to prison for “a very, very long time indeed”.

The court heard that Mr Cook, 19, had been seeing Barton’s ex-girlfriend Claire Pinchen.

Barton, of Railway Street, had been a drug addict for almost 20 years and drugs were one of the reasons the relationship ended.

At court he denied ever making a threatening phone call to Mr Cook or to another of Miss Pinchen’s boyfriends and claimed his reason for being near her Chatham flat on the night of the stabbing was because his dealer was there.

He said he was returning to his car when he saw Mr Cook and asked him for a cigarette.

Barton said: “He pulled out some roll-ups. He had blood on him and said he had been stabbed. I didn’t believe him because he was standing smoking.
“He pulled out his phone and I was going to nick it. He said his shoulder hurt and he handed his phone and coat to me."

Barton said he saw that Mr Cook was bleeding so returned his coat and said he would call an ambulance.

He also denied being intensely jealous.

The court heard that Mr Cook was only half an hour from death when he flagged down a passing police car in Magpie Hall Road, Chatham.

As a result of the attack, he has lost his spleen and will be on antibiotics for the rest of his life.

Judge O’Mahony told Barton: “You set out intending to kill this young man who was much smaller and much younger than you and you planned it in a way consumed by jealousy and that spells out danger to me.”