TWO men accused of murdering 24-year-old Carlisle man Ryan Kirkpatrick in a horrifying city centre knife attack have been found guilty.

It took a jury seven hours to deliver unanimous guilty verdicts on 29-year-old Kane Hull – the man prosecutors said carried out the brutal stabbing on September 18 last year - and his accomplice Liam Porter, 33. 

There were gasps from the public gallery of Court Number Three at Carlisle Crown Court as the verdicts were announced.

Over seven days, the jury heard a harrowing account of how Mr Kirkpatrick died, stabbed by Hull in Carlyle’s Court as he was socialising with friends after attending a Christening.

The evidence included CCTV of the attack, showing how Hull – his face disguised by a balaclava – ran up to his victim and stabbed him three times.

Horrified onlookers made desperate attempts to save Mr Kirkpatrick.

The CCTV footage showed one chilling moment, moments after the stabbing, when Hull appeared to briefly pull down his mask in front of his victim, showing Mr Kirkpatrick who it was wielding the knife.

Mr Kirkpatrick died despite determined efforts by friends, police officers and medical staff at the scene to save him.

Hull stabbed him three times – in the back, the abdomen, and the chest, the point at which the blade severed a major artery.

Prosecutors said Porter was the second masked man who followed Hull into Carlyle’s Court in the run up to the attack.

After the killing, the two defendants fled to the Republic of Ireland.

Prosecutor Tim Evans told the jury there was a history of 'bad blood' between Hull and his victim. This included an occasion four years earlier when Hull and two other men pursued Mr Kirkpatrick into a Carlisle betting shop and attacked him.

At the time, Hull was armed with a wrench – though he did not use it. This led to Hull being jailed.

Fifteen minutes before the fatal attack, the court heard, Hull and Porter had arrived at Carlyle’s Court, and Hull attempted to glass Mr Kirkpatrick – though he failed because bystanders intervened.

As he and Porter left after the attempted glassing, Hull was overheard telling his friend:  “That ******* got me locked up last time.”

After the prosecution concluded their case, defence counsel for both defendants confirmed that neither was willing to testify in their own defence.

Earlier as he opened the trial, Mr Evans told the jury the fatal stabbing was carried out by Kane Hull, who was 'assisted and encouraged' by Porter.

"They came together, they acted together, and after the stabbing, they fled together,” said Mr Evans.

Despite the defendants’ claim that they were not in Carlisle’s Court when Mr Kirkpatrick was fatally stabbed, CCTV footage highlighted several similarities between the images of Hull and Porter those of the masked attacker and his accomplice.

Hull was also recognised by one of Mr Kirkpatrick’s friends. Somebody who had known about Hull for two years, she told the jury: “Kane had the intention to go back to Ryan. I could recognise him anyways from what he looked like, his eyes.

“It could tell it was him from his eyes, from his build.”

Some clothing the killer and his accomplice matched those of Hull and Porter.

Crucially, as the killer was fleeing from Carlyle’s Court, a camera recorded how his hoody slipped, revealing Hull’s close-cropped hair, with a distinctive balding pattern.

The jury also heard how, when the defendants were arrested in the Republic of Ireland, police found they had with them a shopping list. As well as listing food items they wanted, it included “glasses, wigs, masks.”

The defendants will be sentenced tomorrow morning.