A County Lines drug dealer who stabbed a young grandfather 22 times in a dispute over stolen drugs has told a jury he acted in self-defence.

Gavin Hubbard, 42, has died stabbed in house in Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire on May 19.

The prosecution said Mr Hubbard was a client of Tuche Coskun and robbed her and she went to his house to cause him serious harm.

Ms Coskun, 21, from Enfield, north London, denies murder and a separate charge of grievous bodily harm after a friend of Mr Hubbard’s was injured in the home.

A jury at St Albans Crown Court heard how Ms Coskun supplied heroin and cocaine and that Mr Hubbard admitted stealing drugs from her.

George Carter-Stephenson KC, defending, told the jury that Ms Coskun felt trapped by debt to her supplier.

“He can’t pay her, he knows where she and her family live and what kind of punishment might come if she can’t pay the debt.”

The prosecution said Ms Toskun went to Mr Hubbard’s home with a knife to cause him serious harm and retrieve his drugs.

He died from excessive blood loss after receiving nine deep stab wounds and 13 slash wounds.

But Mr Carter-Stephenson told the jury how: “Mr Hubbard had a reputation for violence.”

He said the injuries occurred “during a serious struggle where the defendant believed that if Mr Hubbard had control of the knife he would cause him a very serious injury”.

The jury heard he had several previous convictions for assault and possession of a knife. He started using drugs after his wife died of cancer.

Mr Carter-Stephenson explained how Ms Coskun fell into drug dealing after losing her job at a warehouse and wanting to help her mother.

“She was not fit or equipped to be a drug dealer. She’s too cute.

“She keeps getting robbed, she doesn’t carry a gun. Don’t think that because she’s involved in drug dealing, she’s more likely to have committed a crime.”

The court heard how Tuche Coskun told police “I stabbed him to death”, then told his friend: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like this”.

People who knew Ms Coskun described her as “caring and responsible”.

The prosecution case is that Ms Coskun was motivated by revenge and carried out “an ambush to demand reparations because he took her drugs”.

His Honor Judge Mann KC told the jury they had to decide whether Ms Coskun deliberately and unlawfully caused Mr Hubbard’s death in order for her to be convicted of murder.

He offered the jury an alternative verdict of manslaughter.

The case continues.