A MAN who prosecutors claim was caught with drugs in his jacket after being stabbed refused to give the garment up even while doctors tried to treat him, a court heard.

Staff at the John Radcliffe Hospital had to 'yank' the heroin-filled puffer jacket off Leslie Prince after he was stabbed multiple times, jurors were told yesterday.

The 31-year old of Luther Street, Oxford, denies one count of possession with intent to supply class A drugs.

Prosecutors at Oxford Crown Court claim that Prince was attacked by a gang of dealers at a park in Blackbird Leys on April 12 2017.

It was while he was being treated in hospital, it was claimed, that police found 35 wraps of heroin hidden in a cigarette box in his jacket.

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As his trial continued yesterday one of the first police officers on the scene took to the witness box.

PC Heidi Cornick, of Cowley police station, said she arrived at the scene of the stabbing shortly before 9pm, where she found Prince covered in blood.

She said: "He had blood all over him and he was bleeding and there were members of the public there.

"I asked if you are well he said obviously not, I was stabbed.

"He said he started to feel quite faint and wanted to sit down and said he had been stabbed in the bottom."

She told jurors that paramedics arrived soon after and she travelled with him to the John Radcliffe Hospital.

She said that Prince told her he had been 'jumped' by three men who he said were 'local drug dealers'.

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PC Cornick told jurors that while asking him for more information about what happened he wouldn't let go of the jacket.

She said: "He would not let go of his black jacket and he really wanted to hold it even when the paramedics were trying to administer first aid."

She said that later while at the hospital he was again 'really, really reluctant to let go of his jacket' and added that 'doctors or nurses had to essentially yank it from him'.

Jurors were told that a search of the jacket revealed a Sterling branded cigarette packet which contained what were described as dozens of 'tiny rocks'.

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Other items seized from the jacket, she said, included a mobile phone, sweets and £25 in cash.

Asked what she thought the small rocks were PC Cornick said: "I did think they were drugs, it is normally how class A drugs are packaged to sell them on the street."

Earlier in the trial jurors were told that drugs analysts found that there were 35 heroin wraps in the cigarette box and one that could not be identified.

When quizzed on the drugs, prosecutors said previously, Prince claimed the cigarette packet was not his and his own cigarettes had fallen out the jacket during the park assault.

The trial continues.