A WOMAN accused of trying to kill her ex-boyfriend’s dad claimed she acted in self-defence after he sexually assaulted her.

Kelly Gentry did not dispute being in David Marlborough’s Clacton flat on the night he was stabbed in the neck, chest, shoulder and stomach with a kitchen knife, when she appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Mr Marlborough, 69, told the court Gentry turned up at Wellesley Road unannounced on June 23, at about midday, needing somewhere to stay because the police were looking for her.

She had recently been released from prison on licence for a serious offence, prosecutor Martin Bowyer said, and feared being recalled.

He claims he had not seen Gentry since she went to prison some time in 2016, but his son had maintained contact.

Giving evidence, Mr Marlborough said he gave Gentry the £80 she pleaded for to fund a taxi to Southend, plus another £30.

Then she began demanding more and became violent when he refused, returning from the kitchen with a foot-long knife.

Pointing to the left side of his neck, he told the court Gentry “slashed” him while saying words to the effect of, “You’ve got to die. You will get me more years in prison”.

He said: “I stood up and then she stabbed me again and again. She was laughing.

“I grabbed the knife by the blade and nearly cut my finger off. She stabbed me again in the other shoulder then in the chest while I was standing up.

“I fell to the floor and she thought I was dying.”

He added: “There was nothing I could do, I’d been stabbed five or six times. Blood was pouring out of me.

"I was on the floor and made out I was dead.”

Gentry was arrested in July at an address in Harlow, where she was found hiding under a mattress.

It was during a police interview she admitted having acted in self-defence.

Nurses confirmed there were bruises on her body, believed to have been about two weeks old.

A forensic pathologist reported Mr Marlborough had injuries on both forearms and fingers consistent with someone defending themselves.

After dragging himself to a friend and neighbour’s flat upstairs in the early hours of Saturday morning, dressed only in underwear, an ambulance was called.

Both heavy drinkers, Mr Marlborough, who is a wheelchair user and has cancer, drinks half a bottle of Whiskey a day.

In the hours leading up to the attack, Gentry, 46, was drinking neat vodka from a quarter bottle and had left the flat to buy more from a nearby off licence, the court heard.

During cross-examination, the dad-of-three said he rarely becomes “legless” and alcohol does not make him aggressive.

However, he was unable to remember several incidents when the police were called for matters involving him and former neighbours, and the defendant.

Jacqueline Carey, defending, recalled an occasion when Gentry accused the victim of grabbing her sexually and threatening to kill her in 2016.

He was arrested and interviewed, but not charged.

She said: “I’m going to suggest that at about 10.30pm, Ms Gentry told you she was going to stay in Harlow with a friend of hers. She rang a taxi and you lost your temper and tried to attack her.

“I’m going to suggest you pushed her to the floor, she was face down and you were on top of her.

“You were grabbing her and put your hands down her trousers.

“She managed to push you off and when you got up, you wasn’t wearing any trousers.

“After she pushed you off, it was you who held the knife and was waving it around. And it was her struggling with you to try and keep you away.”

To the allegations, Mr Marlborough repeated: “What a load of rubbish.”

He said he had no trousers on because he had taken his clothes off to try and stem the bleeding.

Gentry, of no fixed address, denies attempted murder.

The trial continues.