A MAN accused of a double murder 'fended off' one of his alleged victims after he caught him throttling a woman in his living room on the morning of the stabbings, a court heard.

Raymond Morgan, who is charged with the murder of Adrian Fannon, 39, and Mark Pawley, 25, took to the witness box as his trial at Oxford Crown Court continued yesterday.

The 53-year old told the court that he woke up on the morning of October 1 to the sounds of banging at his Newland Road flat where he found Mr Fannon slumped against a TV stand while Mr Pawley was ‘strangling’ another woman.

He said: “He was behind her, she was on the floor hands down, her knees were on the floor just crouching down.

“[Mark Pawley] was behind her throttling her, strangling her, he had got his hands around her throat.”

He told the court that when he tried to intervene Mr Pawley ‘lunged’ at him and Morgan then hit him over the head with a wooden stool, knocking him out.

As he tended to the woman, who he told the court he didn’t know or recognise, he collapsed on the ground and had a seizure before coming to some seven hours later when he reported the incident at a local police station.

Earlier in the trial the court had heard that on the morning of the murders a neighbour had heard 'loud banging' coming from the flat shortly before 10am.

The neighbour said that she had heard ‘crashing and banging’ and added: “It sounded like a bull had been let loose in Ray’s flat.”

Defending Tracy Ayling also read out witness statements to jurors from his nephew yesterday which said that in the months before the alleged attack he had been involved in a fight inside his flat involving drugs.

After the scuffle, the court heard, he had armed himself with a knife and a baseball bat which he had kept inside the living room to help defend himself.

While taking to the stand Morgan was also asked by prosecutors how he had felt about the killings yesterday and said: “Atrocious, whoever has done it deserves punishment. They were good friends of mine.”

Prosecutors maintain that Morgan stabbed the two men at least 30 times in a ‘savage’ and 'sustained' attack.

Adrian Redgrave QC, prosecuting, put to Morgan in cross-examination that when he had turned up at the police station shortly after 5pm that day he had said 'that's two druggie b******s off the street.'

Morgan answered: "I can't remember saying it."

The trial continues.