RESIDENTS in the street where a York man was left bleeding after a vicious knife attack have spoken about the horrific incident.

A man, said by locals to be 29-year-old Lee Pickard, of Prospect House, Bishophill Junior, was rushed to York Hospital after the incident at 4pm yesterday.

He is thought to have been stabbed in the back and stomach and hit repeatedly in the head.

Four men in their 30s and with shaved heads were seen by eyewitnesses running towards Prospect House, and came out a short time later chasing Mr Pickard, who was bleeding down one side of his face.

They caught up with him and "laid into him" outside the neighbouring Oliver House care home.

Mr Pickard rang the doorbell at Oliver House, but then staggered back towards Prospect House, where he was comforted by a local woman until paramedics arrived.

One man, who did not want to be named, said last Thursday four men with Merseyside accents had kicked in the door of Mr Pickard's flat and one came out holding a six-inch knife.

A 44-year-old man who dialled 999, and also did not want to be named after he was threatened by a youth at the scene, said he ran to Prospect House after hearing a scuffle and a woman's piercing scream.

He said he saw men four men jump into a dark blue BMW 3-series and drive off, before he went back to see how the man was.

"Someone said he had been stabbed in the head. There was a lot of blood. The police came and one of them said he thought it could be fatal," he said.

Prospect House was also the home of Carl Shaw, 26, the York man found strangled at an address in the city's Cemetery Road on Sunday.

Police had been there only the day before the knife attack as part of the investigation into Mr Shaw's death.

Police cordoned off Bishophill Junior at the junction with Priory Street and Prospect Terrace for three hours, and uniformed officers stood guard while scenes of crime investigators combed the area.

Mr Pickard is believed to live in a ground-floor flat, at the opposite end of Prospect House from Mr Shaw.

Pools of blood could be seen outside Mr Pickard's flat, and on the pavement opposite Oliver House, and there was a line of blood leading to the door of Oliver House and blood smeared on the doorbell.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "We were called to an address in Bishophill following reports of a serious assault on a 29-year-old local man who was taken to York Hospital with stab wounds, but his condition was described as not life-threatening."

Peter Robert Charles Aird, 35, of Cemetery Road, York, appeared before York magistrates yesterday charged with murdering Mr Shaw on October 24. No plea was entered, but the court heard he intended to deny the charge.

An application for bail was refused, and Aird was remanded in custody to appear before York Crown Court on Monday.

Updated: 10:17 Thursday, October 28, 2004