A MAN accused of murder hid a knife in his trainers to “get it inside” a nightclub before using it to stab three people, a court has heard.

Rashane Douglas, 19, of Jade Place, Huddersfield is on trial at Bradford Crown Court after 21-year-old Joshua Clark and 19-year-old Haidar Shah died from stab wounds outside Maggie’s nightclub, in Commercial Street, Halifax at around 3.45am on October 1 last year.

Douglas admits inflicting the men’s singular fatal wounds with a black-handle folding knife and causing a slash wound to their friend Brandon Coope, 18, from Bradford, who survived.

But he said he was acting in self-defence and told the court he was “terrified” and thought he was going to die when the three men – who had been inside Maggie’s at the same time as Douglas and three of his friends – rained punches on him.

Giving evidence on Tuesday, Douglas claimed he saw one of the men with a knife but accepts now none of them did.

He said: “When they was approaching me, I don't know which one it was, one of them had their hands in their pants, like they had something on them.”

Douglas told the court he was punched in the head multiple times and felt he had no escape, despite making efforts to create an opening among the three men who had “circled” him.

Then he said: “I lashed out just to get away.”

He added: “I just needed to get away, because they kept hitting me in my face, kept hitting in my face and I didn't think I'd be able to get away.”

The court heard Douglas put the knife under his sole in the Balenciaga Track trainers he was wearing when entering Maggie’s through a knife arch.

Naeem Mian KC, defending him, asked why he did this and Douglas replied “just to get it inside”.

Douglas said he then moved the knife into the pocket of his top.

However, under cross-examination, he said he couldn't remember if it was his trousers or top at the time trouble was taking place.

The court heard Douglas carried a knife because people close to him had been hurt or killed – either stabbed or shot – in the past from similar situations and “because I don’t feel safe”.

He added: “I never think of using it, it's just to scare people off.”

Douglas was convicted of carrying a knife just under a year before the stabbings and received a four-month sentence, suspended for two years.

He said: “I'd got it off a friend not too long before and it was more close to the events of people dying close to me, I was more scared than ever.”

Yaseen Iqbal, 18, of Hall Bower, Huddersfield, is also on trial accused of assisting an offender.

It is claimed he helped Douglas avoid arrest by fleeing the scene with him in a taxi, letting him stay at his house that night, and helping him dispose of the clothing he was wearing at the time.

But the court heard Iqbal said he only found out Douglas had stabbed people just before he told him to hand himself into the police.

The trial continues.