A mother marched her son to the police station after he confessed to her that he attacked a 14-year-old girl with a knife and left her for dead, a court was told.

Kristofer Beddar, 21, a French national, confronted Jessica Knight last January as she was walking through a park near Chorley, Lancashire, on the way to meet friends, Preston Crown Court heard.

She was stabbed in the neck, stomach and chest about 20 times and could have bled to death if a cyclist had not raised the alarm.

Mr Beddar, who had recently lost his job in a supermarket, had a volatile temper and had behaved in an aggressive manner to former work colleagues, the court was told. The prosecution said that on the night of the attack he snapped and took his temper out on the schoolgirl.

His victim, now aged 15, said in an interview read out in court that she could remember very little about the attack but recalled being on the ground and feeling “pain worse than anything she had ever experienced before”. “I had my eyes shut,” she said. “It was a total blank.”

Mr Beddar, who denies attempted murder, was living with the English side of his family in Adlington, Chorley.

He claims to have drunk half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey that day and said that he had no recollection of his actions. The court heard that he sent a text message either before or after the assault informing his mother that he would not be home for tea.

On the evening after the stabbing he was watching a television news report of the incident when he told his mother, Marion: “I think it was me, mum.”

Mrs Beddar took her son to the police station that night and told an officer: “This is my son. I have brought him in. He is responsible for the stabbing.”

William Waldron, QC, opening for the prosecution, said: “The defendant accepts that in causing the injuries he did, there must have been an intention to cause serious harm to Jessica, but he denies he was attempting to murder her. The Crown rejects that denial. The defendant’s attack of amnesia for the critical moment is born out of convenience.”

Mr Waldron said that the amount of alcohol Mr Beddar claims to have consumed was modest and not enough to be considered a factor. “He had lost his temper for some reason or other, and having done so perpetrated a frenzied attack upon Jessica Knight, being unable to stop once he had started.” Mr Beddar told police that on the day of the stabbing he had visited a local Jobcentre and then drank the whiskey in a park. After the incident, he returned home and went to his room. The court heard that despite a faint smell of alcohol, his family did not consider him to be drunk.

The next day he threw the clothes that he had been wearing under a bridge near his home. One training shoe was found near by and another was found in a canal.

The court heard that during a break from police interviews after his arrest, Mr Beddar told a detention officer that he drank a lot on the day of the attack and “knew he had done something bad but did not know how to stop”.

Jessica was found in the park by Gareth Crook, who was cycling home from work. Mr Crook, a former soldier, used his gloves to stem the flow of blood from a neck wound before the emergency services arrived and took her to Chorley Hospital for surgery. Mr Waldron said: “Kristofer Beddar left Jessica Knight lying face down, alone in the dark, bleeding to death from his savage attack on her. He literally left her for dead. Had it not been for the timely appearance of Gareth Crook, we submit she would have died.”

The trial continues.

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