A CLOSE friend of Robert Dobinson has described “heated arguments” during his final hours with the woman accused of his murder.

Natasha Elderfield is on trial at Oxford Crown Court accused of stabbing the 33-year-old to death in a drunken rage on a boat in Abingdon on October 19 last year.

Yesterday morning the jury hearing the case visited the riverbank near Abingdon Bridge where Mr Dobinson’s body was found by police.

Then it heard evidence that he had spent the evening rowing with his girlfriend Elderfield over the phone about her relationship with another man.

Danny Barron, an alcoholic who had known Mr Dobinson since childhood, accompanied him to the riverbank on the evening of his death – but said he fell asleep under a tree just before the alleged stabbing.

Mr Barron added that his friend, from Faringdon and known locally as Robert ‘Raggy’ Smith, told him he was going to talk to Elderfield and would be back in “two minutes” – but never returned.

Prosecutor Charles Ward-Jackson asked him: “That was the last day you ever saw your friend Robert?”

Mr Barron, of Daisy Bank, Abingdon, replied: “Yes sir.”

Earlier he described Mr Dobinson turning up to his house at about 1.30pm and spending the afternoon drinking cider with him and his friends.

He told the jury that his friend repeatedly had “heated arguments” with Elderfield over the phone, mainly about a man called Tony Steggles, who was with her.

Mr Ward-Jackson asked him: “What was he saying to her?”

Mr Barron replied: “He was saying ‘why is that geezer on the boat? I don’t like him being around you.’ “He said he wanted to go back and speak to Natasha, so I walked him down to the river.”

Mr Barron said both men were “inebriated” by this point, which was between 5.30pm and 6pm.

Other witnesses said at about 7pm they saw the pair walking near Bridge Street in Abingdon, with Mr Dobinson talking on the phone.

In a statement read in court, Paul Abbott said: “He was shouting down the phone, he sounded irate about something, he seemed angry about something and wanted to get somewhere quickly.”

Aiden Strange said in another statement: “He was shouting down the phone very aggressively ‘get him off the boat’.”

Defence barrister Andrew Hall QC suggested to Mr Barron he was mistaken about the final events of the evening. He told the witness: “You were sitting on a bench, Rob had gone off towards the boat, but he came back again and tried to get you to join him.

“He was telling you to get up and when you tried to get up you fell on your face.”

Mr Barron denied that was what had happened, stating instead that he fell asleep and woke up with police officers cordoning off the area.

Opening the case on Tuesday, Mr Ward-Jackson said Mr Steggles told police that he and Elderfield had been drinking during the early evening, when Mr Dobinson appeared in the cabin. He said a struggle then took place between Elderfield and Mr Dobinson in her boat’s cabin, which continued onto its deck.

Mr Ward-Jackson said: “The prosecution says the defendant picked up the kitchen knife and she stabbed him in the chest intending, if not to kill him, then at the very least, in a drunken rage, to cause him serious injury.”

Mr Steggles and Elderfield called the police, the barrister added, who found Mr Dobinson still alive but unconscious further up the river bank.

He was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington for emergency surgery but died later that evening.

Mr Ward-Jackson said mother-oftwo Elderfield had been in a turbulent relationship with Mr Dobinson since June 2012, and had lived in a tent in woodland in Abingdon before moving into a cabin cruiser moored near Bridge Street.

Elderfield denies murder.

The trial continues.