A FATHER was stabbed to death after a community fête yesterday and another man is critically ill after he was knifed trying to protect a woman who was being attacked.

The two incidents, in Bristol and Nottingham, are the latest in a spate of fatal or near-fatal stabbings this month and happened less than a week after police forces across the country began a five-week national knife amnesty.

Despite that amnesty, there were more than fifty stabbings over the Bank Holiday weekend, and officers from British Transport Police in Luton seized ninety dangerous weapons, including knives, knuckle-dusters and pepper sprays, from carnival-goers yesterday.

Avon and Somerset police described the father of three, who was 29, as “very much a family man”. He was attacked yesterday afternoon on his way home from a police-sponsored community day on the Knowle West estate in Bristol.

Dominic Costello, 31, was at the event. “It was a really good day,” he said. “Everyone was enjoying themselves and there was a good atmosphere.” His group, including the victim, whom he knew as Barry, left the event at about 4pm.

At some point the victim became involved in an argument and Mr Costello went to intervene. “When I got there I could see the man had managed to stumble inside his house. He was covered in blood. He had been stabbed in the neck and chest,” Mr Costello said. The man was taken to Bristol Royal Infirmary, where he was pronounced dead.

Last night a 26-year-old man was in a critical condition at Queen’s Medical Centre, in Nottingham, after going to help a woman being beaten up in the street early on Sunday.

Ian Montgomery was having a night out with friends in the Hockley area of the city. He was stabbed in the chest and back and had yet to regain consciousness last night.

His parents, Stephen, 54, and Marian, 52, and brother Stuart, 30, were at his bedside in an intensive care unit.

His father said that his son had been attacked for doing what he knew was right. He said: “Ian is a lovely lad who is always willing to help people in trouble. He knows what is right — and hitting a woman most certainly is not.

“He will have seen the young woman being assaulted in the street, and it will have been natural for him to go and see if he could stop it.”

“He would not have expected to be stabbed for his trouble, and I ask anyone who saw the person or people responsible to speak to the police.”

Police have appealed for witnesses to come forward. The two incidents are just the latest in what is threatening to become an epidemic of stabbings around the country this month.

A day before the Bristol man’s death, a 17-year-old was left lying in a pool of blood in the St Pauls area of the city. He was taken to hospital where his injuries were described as serious.

A married father-of-one who was stabbed to death in Birmingham on Sunday was named yesterday as 26-year-old Marlvin Jiro. He was involved in a fight with three men after visiting a nightclub. Also yesterday, a 22-year-old man was left seriously injured after he was stabbed in Seven Sisters Road, near Finsbury Park Tube station in North London.

On Saturday, Tom Grant, 19, a student at the University of St Andrews, was stabbed to death on a train from Glasgow to Paignton, Devon. Thomas Lee Wood, of Skelmersdale, Lancashire, was charged with his murder and has been remanded in custody.

There were more than fifty stabbings over the weekend, ITN reported.

Special police constable Nisha Patel-Nasri died when she was stabbed with her own kitchen knife on her doorstep in Wembley, northwest London, this month.

On May 18, Kiyan Prince, 15, a promising footballer, was stabbed to death in Edgware, North London, and, last week, a 14-year-old pupil in Birmingham was seriously injured when he was stabbed outside his school.

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