THE partner of a man allegedly stabbed to death outside his home by a teenage girl has told how she saw him collapse.

Christopher Chapman was allegedly knifed in the chest by a 16-year-old girl after going out to tell her and her friend to get away from his flat in Blyth, Northumberland.

Mr Chapman had gone out to remonstrate with the teenagers, who turned up at his flat looking to have a fight with his friends.

On the second day of the murder trial of the 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and co-accused Megan Hope, 19, jurors heard from Mr Chapman’s long-term partner, Tonya Rutherford, who had been in bed when the incident happened.

Miss Rutherford said she didn’t see how Mr Chapman, known to his friends as Chappy, came to be injured but as she looked out of their flat she saw him fall to the ground, fatally wounded.

She told Newcastle Crown Court: “Chappy was standing with his hands by his side when I looked out.

“I couldn’t see anyone else, I just remember standing next to the sitting room door and I saw Chappy fall to the floor.”

Mr Chapman, 24, was allegedly murdered outside the flat he shared with Miss Rutherford, at Windmill Grove, Blyth, in April. Prosecutors say the two teenagers turned up armed with knives and looking to have a fight with Mr Chapman’s friends.

But when he went out in the early hours and told them to go away, he was allegedly stabbed once by the 16-year-old.

Cassie Gallon, who was also at the flat that night, told how the 16-year-old, who has since turned 17, who she did not know, grabbed her through an open window, prompting Neil Strachan and then Mr Chapman to go outside.

The defendants had allegedly turned up looking for a fight after arguing on the phone with one of Mr Chapman’s friends earlier in the night.

Co-accused Hope, who went to the scene with the 16-year-old, both of them armed with a knife, is also accused of murder on the grounds she was part of the joint venture, though she did not attack him.

The two teenagers appeared outside Mr Chapman’s ground-floor flat and started shouting for those inside to come out.

Mr Chapman died of a single stab wound which passed through the muscle between his sixth and seventh ribs, went through his diaphragm and through his liver, stomach and aorta.

The 16-year-old and Hope, 19, of Rosalind Street, Ashington, both deny murder. The trial continues.