A man accused of killing his boyfriend by stabbing him and leaving him for dead told police he used a knife to defend himself when his lover flew into a violent rage.

Murder suspect Aaron Ray said Jason Brockbanks ‘became psychotic’ and attacked him after being confronted with evidence he had slept with another man.

Ray, 21, from Mayfield Road, Sunderland, said his partner of three months had a tendency to ‘flip’ when he had been drinking and would become aggressive.

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Mr Brockbanks, 24, from Whitehaven, Cumbria, died after an alleged incident in the Mansion Tyne student accommodation block in Newcastle, in the early hours of Saturday, September 24, last year.

On Thursday, jurors at Newcastle Crown Court were shown a video interview with Ray following his arrest on suspicion of murder.

He told officers they had been out drinking in Newcastle’s gay scene before going back to Mr Brockbanks’ room.

Ray said they were on his bed when heard a notification from the hook-up app Grindr on Mr Brockbanks’ phone with a message from a man suggesting they have sex again.

He said Mr Brockbanks reacted angrily when he was challenged over it.

Ray said: “He said: ‘Shut up you psycho’. I remember him calling me a psycho.

“I reacted by saying: ‘How am I a psycho? Why have you cheated on me?

“He started getting aggressive. I go to walk out and he got hold of me and pushed me over.

“I tried to get up and he hit me. He just kept punching into me. It was on my neck area, with both fists, it was really hard.

“I was fearful. It has never been that bad before when he has punched me.”

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Ray said he was curled in a ball but then grabbed a big green and yellow handled knife from the desk nearby and slashed Mr Brockbanks with it.

He said: “I slashed him across the stomach and he fell on to the bed.

“When I went to try and leave again he grabbed hold of me around my waist.

“I kept trying to get away but I still had the knife in my hand. He pulled me back and I fell on to him. It (the knife) has fell into him. I think it was in his stomach area.”

He said he was not aware Mr Brockbanks, a third-year Northumbria University student, was seriously injured.

He said: “I could not see loads of blood or anything.

“He told me to ‘get out’. He was not like screaming or anything.

“I was just scared at the time.”

Ray said he got his rucksack and put the knife in the kitchen drawer in the communal area before leaving the building to go home.

Mr Brockbanks’ body was not found until three days later, on the afternoon of Tuesday September 27, when the block’s assistant hospitality manager received a message asking her to check as his parents were concerned.

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Ray said: "On the night it happened I didn't even realise he had died or anything but the reason I stabbed him was basically he was absolutely mortal drunk.

“It's happened in the past as well, when he drinks so much like that he becomes really violent and aggressive.

"That night he came at me worse than I have ever seen him in my whole life.”

Ray denies murder and the trial continues.