Portland man Eldon Lloyd Malcolm has been found guilty of stabbing a tourist eight times after a row outside a Weymouth pub.

James Little, aged 25, could have died if he had not been found by paramedics after he collapsed outside St John’s Church in Weymouth.

As he was treated police followed a 215-metre trail of blood that showed Mr Little had been stabbed repeatedly on Dorchester Road outside Westers Bistro before staggering up Westerhall Road and along Greenhill.

A jury at Bournemouth Crown Court took six hours and 51 minutes to return a 10-2 majority verdict and Malcolm asked the judge to tell him his fate straight away.

Judge John Harrow remanded Malcolm in custody but will wait for a report from the Probation Service before deciding how long his sentence will be.

Judge Harrow told Malcolm: “Inevitably it will have to be a lengthy prison sentence.

“You will be remanded in custody and the time starts now.”

Malcolm, aged 51, of Reforne, Portland, spent almost two weeks in the dock with co-defendant Nicholas Tucker, aged 40, of Spring Grove Court, Weymouth.

They both faced the charge of wounding with intent to do Mr Little grievous bodily harm on the night of May 25 last year.

Mr Tucker walked free from court on Thursday after the jury returned a not guilty verdict.

Martin Lanchester, prosecuting, had told the court how the pair provided the catering as a trial at the Park Hotel pub and left to walk a young woman, Nicola Bassett, home along Grange Road.

Malcolm took the kitchen knives he had been using with him.

Mr Lanchester said after they left they were subjected to racist abuse from members of a group of four men that included Mr Little.

Miss Bassett said Malcolm had become angry with them and taken out one of his knives to chase them off.

She told how she slapped him round the face to try and make him see sense. Susan Evans, defending Tucker, said her defendant had also tried to calm the situation.

Dorchester Road resident Marie Farwell was woken by the confrontation in the streets and told the court how she saw two black men that each carried a knife in their hand.

A schoolboy who cannot be named due to his age told how he looked out of his window and saw a black man punch another man eight to 11 times. Mr Lanchester argued that what the boy saw was Malcolm stabbing the victim.

DETECTIVE Sergeant Mark Jenkins thanked Weymouth’s residents for helping bring Malcolm to justice. Det Sgt Jenkins, officer in the case, praised the witnesses who came to court from the Grange Road area.

He said: “It’s a quiet part of Weymouth and it’s completely out of the ordinary. It’s very unfortunate that anything like that should have happened in the first place.

He said the case showed the danger of knives. “People have died from far less severe injuries,” he said.

“It does highlight the danger and I want to get that message across that people should not carry knives. Ultimately if they do use them they could end up suffering a similar fate to Mr Malcolm.”

Det Sgt Jenkins also described the incident as a ‘very sad’ one ‘that just spiralled’ after the two defendants were confronted in Grange Road.

He said: “It just demonstrates that you can’t take the law into your own hands, however wrong the behaviour towards you. If Mr Malcolm had just phoned the police – however mistrusting he was – instead of taking matters into his own hands it would have been dealt with.”