Police ScotlandA dying schoolboy said “they have got me” and begged for his mother after being stabbed at a railway station.
Justin McLaughlin, 14, was comforted by young friends who rushed to his aid after the incident on the afternoon of October 16, 2021.
One girl later told police of a knife-wielding assailant and blood dripping from the blade following the attack at Glasgow’s High Street station.
The evidence was heard at the trial of 18-year-old Daniel Haig on Monday.
He denies murder, but it is agreed between prosecutors and his legal team that he delivered the blow which caused Justin’s death.
Jurors were played a police interview of a 14-year-old girl who had been with Justin and others that day.
They had travelled to Glasgow for food at a McDonald’s in the city’s Argyle Street before returning to the train station.
The girl stated it was there they then spotted two boys on the platform.
The trial earlier heard one of them was said to Haig.
The witness told police Justin shouted towards them before he ended up being grabbed and punched.
She said one of the two boys on the platform had earlier taken “something” from a bag and then hidden it up his top.
It became apparent it was a knife after it fell onto the tracks.
The attacker jumped down to retrieve the weapon. The girl said she shouted on everyone to run.
But, she recalled Justin tripping – possibly over his own feet – before the assailant “grabbed his jacket and stabbed him”.
The girl said: “I looked at his knife and there was blood dripping off it.”
She immediately went to help Justin who managed to stagger towards a flower bed at the station.
The girl: “He said something like: ‘They have got me’. He fell face first onto the ground.
“Justin was trying to stand up. He kept saying: ‘I need my mum…I need to go home’.”
The wounded teenager also insisted he was “fine”.
Other people at the station also came to his aid.
The girl: “His lips had turned blue and white. The other boys (with them) were crying.”
Justin’s phone then rang as he lay stricken at the station.
The witness said: “It was like his mum or something. One of the boys answered. I do not know what he said.”
Justin was rushed to the city’s Royal Hospital for Children, but never recovered. He had been stabbed in the heart.
The girl and some of the other youngsters were taken meantime to a police station.
After they arrived, a mum of one of the group was heard saying “the wee boy had died”.
There was also mention of the death on social media.
The girl was quizzed further during the interview about the actual stabbing.
She recalled Justin being grabbed by the shoulder or jacket.
The witness: “He shoved it in him…I was confused if he punched or stabbed him.”
She said the attacker initially walked off before him and the other boy ran out of the station.
The girl again told how some of Justin’s friends were in tears on the platform.
The youngster stated: “They could not look at it as it was their best pal.”
The girl herself said she had felt “scared and petrified” when she became aware of a knife and that what happened had left her “in shock”.
The trial later heard from another boy who was in Justin’s group that day.
In his recorded police interview, the 16-year-old spoke of seeing a “Rambo” knife with “spiky bits all over it”.
He also recalled Justin stating at one stage to his attacker: “You think you are the big man.”
After being struck, jurors heard Justin told his friend: “Leave me, I am a goner.”
The trial, before judge Lord Clark, continues.
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