A man who slit his friend's throat after she clambered through his window in the night said he reacted on instinct during a "flight or fight situation". Mark Cooke (known also as Mark Meadows) is on trial accused of attempted murder after attacking his best friend Kiri Palfreyman with a knife when she came into his home through the window on February 20 this year.

He faces two alternative charges of wounding with intent and unlawful wounding. Appearing in the witness box on the second day of his trial, the 50-year-old from Camborne again denied all charges against him. He told the court how he never bore any ill feelings against Ms Palfreyman as they had been friends on and off for many years.

Read next: Drug dealer threatened man with a gun in middle of Cornish town

Read next: Drug-dealing dad in £20k bust in his family home

Both in his statement to the police on the morning of February 20 and in person at Truro Crown Court today (Thursday, August 1), Cooke said it was never his intention to harm anyone but he panicked when he was woken up by breaking ornaments as a "dark shadow" climbed through a small window in the front room of his apartment in Uglow Close at around 5.30am.

Cooke said he had been asleep after taking sleeping pills and painkillers, drinking three litres of strong cider and half a small bottle of vodka, as he does every night before going to bed. In his evidence and police statement, he said he never heard Ms Palfreyman as she banged on the door and called his name.

Join CornwallLive on WhatsApp and be first to hear what's happening near you

He said: "I heard a commotion. I saw a figure come through the window. It was just a silhouette. I thought it was some smackhead robber. I was terrified so it was an instinct reaction. I'm not a fighter. I'm a cripple. I'm a coward. I was aware of my own frailty. So I panicked. It was a fight or flight situation."

On day one of the trial, Ms Palfreyman said the light inside Cooke's flat had been on and he would therefore have been able to see it was here all along. However, Cooke said all the main lights in the flat had been off save for a dim small side light in the far corner of the living room. He insisted it was not bright enough to recognise who the shape coming through the window had been.

He said that it was only when he switched the main light on in the room after slashing at the intruder with a Stanley knife, which he had bought from Poundland to fiddle about with electronic music equipment he was trying to fix, that he realised it was Ms Palfreyman and that he had sliced at her neck and injured her.

He told the court he was so furious with her for coming into his house like a thief in the night while he slept that he shouted abuse at her, "frogmarched her to the front door and chucked her out" and told her never to come back.

The court was told that while Ms Palfreyman ran across the close to seek help from the only house with lights on, Cooke called the police to inform them he had "done a gruesome assault". He was arrested at his home at 6.30am that morning and taken to Camborne police station for interview.

In his police interview, which was read out in court, and again in the witness box, Cooke said that while he lived at another address in the town before, Ms Palfreyman had on a couple of occasions, come into his flat through the window but he said the incident in Uglow Close was the first time she'd done that there.

Cooke, who walks with the aid of a walking stick, told the court: "I would never have done that if I had known it was her. I would have probably given her a slap and chucked her out but not this. It was not intentional. I didn't know who it was. It's not like me at all to cause injuries to anyone.

"She had been my rock when I was in a dark place after my sister committed suicide before Christmas and my mum died a few days before this incident. It's a case of mistaken identity seeing someone come through the window. I just panicked."

In cross examination, Ramsay Quaife, asked him: "Are you making it up as you go along? Did you want her to die?" Cooke said "no" repeating again and again that he had never intended to harm anyone.

The trial continues.