A MAN knifed a long-term friend shouting: “You killed my nan, you’ve got to die.”

Malcolm Sims, 26, stabbed Jason Applin five times in his back, arm and chest, which resulted in a collapsed left lung.

The drama happened when Mr Applin left his flat to go for a smoke. He had finished rolling his cigarette when he felt “a very sharp pain” in the middle of his back. Initially he thought someone had punched him but when he put his left hand behind him, realised he was bleeding. He then saw Sims had a kitchen knife in his right hand and his eyes fixed on him.

He ran off but fell over in a children’s play area when Sims chased after him. He stood over him and repeatedly stabbed him before walking off.

Sims, 36, of Walnut Close, Southampton, had previously been found unfit to plead because of a mental illness, and in a trial that lasted just 30 minutes at the city crown court, jurors were asked to determine whether he had committed the act of causing grievous bodily harm.

Within three minutes of retiring, they found he had and Sims was ordered to be detained at Ravenswood Hospital pending sentence next month.