THE 21-YEAR-OLD man accused of murdering Rob Knox and stabbing five others has been giving evidence at his trial for the first time.

Karl Bishop had only just moved to the Sidcup area, where he lived with his mother and younger brother at Beaver Lodge, Carlton Road, Sidcup, a few weeks before the May 24 attack.

Bishop said that in the early hours of May 17 he was punched and kicked by a group outside the Metro Bar in Station Road, Sidcup, the scene of a melee the following week in which Harry Potter star Mr Knox lost his life.

The defendant had arrived there with friend Alex Hennah in the evening after drinking in The Crown pub in Chislehurst, and during the course of the night he lost his phone.

Bishop said his memory of the incident was vague but after closing time when he was asking people about the phone he was pushed by Dean Saunders, a friend of Rob Knox who was also stabbed the following week.

He said: "He pushed me and I didn't know whether he was going to hit me so I punched him."

Bishop said he was then "jumped on" by five or six people.

He said: "They just punched me till I got to the floor."

The defendant went on: "People were stamping on my head, kicking me."

Bishop says he was then chased by members of the group towards Tesco Express and attacked and kicked again.

He then went to his mother, who he described as his "old dear", at Lima Cabs, the taxi firm she worked at in Station Road.

Bishop said the boys then chased him again but the police arrived and broke up the trouble.

Asked how he felt after that incident, Bishop said: "A bit battered and bruised but not too bad. I was quite angry about what happened."

He said he barely left his house for a week afterwards.

The court heard that on May 26, 2005, Bishop was imprisoned for wounding with intent to cause GBH and assualt occasioning actual bodily harm, offences which he pleaded guilty to.

That attack, on December 4, 2004, took place outside a cab office in East Street, Bromley.

Two men said they found a woman who had been harassed by three men, one of which was Bishop.

In the altercation which followed one man received a cut to the nose while another's face was slashed.

Bishop was released from custody in March 2007.

Previously, on July 17, 2003, it was alleged that Bishop had threatened a man in Chislehurst with a butterfly knife.

The man said Bishop pointed the knife at him and said: "Go on, hit me now and you'll get stabbed up."

Bishop claimed the knife was actually a key he was holding in his fist and the case was subsequently dropped.

The defendant, who told the court that he had not seen his father for 16 years, said he had suffered from problems with anger since he was very young.

He was expelled from Red Hill Primary School in Red Hill, Chislehurst, and eventually went to Bromley College, London Road, Bromley, to study mechanics before he left education at 15.

In his younger days he had committed several acts of criminal damage, the court heard.

Asked why he carried a knife, Bishop told the court: "It's just protection, innit?"

After being released, the defendant went to live with his mother in New Eltham and worked for an air conditioning business before being laid off.

At this time, Bishop said he was regularly "drinking to get drunk."

Bishop denies murder and five counts of wounding with intent.

The trial continues.