“I’M going to die.”

A desperate 999 call made by stabbed pensioner John Sales as he clung onto life was played to the jury in the ongoing conspiracy to murder trial.

Mr Sales, then 70, was stabbed repeatedly at his home in Hythe Hill on November 10.

Mr Sales, who was alone at the time when he was attacked, managed to reach a phone to call for an ambulance and police.

The jury, of six men and six women at Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday, heard Mr Sales tell the operator “I have been stabbed”.

Attempts were made to get the address when Mr Sales repeated “I have been stabbed” adding “with a knife”.

He told the operator “I feel terrible” and through very heavy breathing said he did not know if his attacker was still there but he was bleeding heavily from multiple wounds.

Mr Sales, still struggling, told the operator: “I have not got long. I am going to die. I am dying.”

The skilled emergency operator manages to keep Mr Sales speaking before sirens can be heard in the background and officers and paramedics arrive.

Mr Sales was rushed to hospital with wounds close to his heart, kidney damage and other injuries.

He was placed in a coma but is now recovering.

The jury were also shown body worn camera footage of his Hythe Hill home after the attack.

The videos showed blood near the front door, after Mr Sales managed to get the door open for the emergency services.

Seats and surfaces inside and outside were shown splattered with blood with pools in the kitchen and on doors and furniture.

The footage also showed a sheath for a knife in the back garden.

The sheath belonged to a 10ins “Rambo” style hunting knife which was the weapon used in the attack.

Flash Ashley Day, 46, of Rose Allen Avenue, Colchester, Scott Moffat, 49, of Colchester Road, Manningtree and a teenage girl from Colchester who cannot be named have been charged with, and deny, conspiring to murder Mr Sales.

Ryan Hynes, 21, of Long Road, Lawford has admitted attempted murder and is awaiting sentence.

The court also heard texts later recovered by experts prove there was a conspiracy to murder a pensioner, prosecutors claim.

Phones and social media accounts belonging to the three alleged conspirators have been examined and items recovered.

Brian Reece, prosecuting, told the court Day and Moffat had a text conversation after the murder plot went wrong which was deleted but recovered.

He claimed it included messages stating “he better destroy everything he wore, everything he had with him and I mean destroy” and “If he drags my name in my remaining life will be in prison which will be very short after that happens”.

Also “the knife needs tossing in the river” and concerns about CCTV, DNA and fingerprints which the prosecution claim were the pair sharing messages about Hynes.

Mr Reece claimed other messages were successfully deleted but stated Hynes must have been briefed to have information about murdering someone he did not know and someone he had no connections with.

Mr Reece said: “He would not have known the place to go, the time to be there and details be could not possibly have known unless they were fed to him.

“He would have had to know the details about John Sales leaving early evening to be driving to Mersea, that John Sales always left the house through the back door to go through the garden to where the car was parked.”

He also pointed to messages recovered between the pair when another man was arrested on suspicion of murder which they referred to as “strange”.

And the jury heard about messages the teenage girl allegedly shared following the arrest of another man including one stating “ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha”.

Mr Reece told the jury “she knows Ryan Hynes is responsible” adding when she finds out someone else is arrested “she is delighted and thinks it is funny”.

He added: “She went with him to Hythe Hill and knew what he was going to do there.

“She left with him believing he had murdered someone.

“She helped him even to the point of having lied to the police and providing a false alibi.”

The trial continues.