Man sentenced for stabbing North Yorkshire shop worker with needle

A Teesside nurse has been given life in prison with a minimum of 16 years behind bars for attempting to murder a Northallerton record shop owner.

5\8 year-old Darren Harris from Middlesbrough had just paid for his items when he injected Gary Lewis with a muscle relaxing anaesthetic.

Gary has been telling us what happened on that day last July:

"The first thing he said to me was, “You won’t remember me, but you bought some records from me a while ago.” I buy records from people most days. I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t.” And then we just moved on. I didn’t remember him.

He started looking at records, chatting the way most customers do. I was playing records, other customers came in. He was just the absolute normal customer — no animosity. In fact, he was talking more than your average customer about how much he loved the shop and his favourite records. He’d pick a record up and say, “This is one of my favourites.” Customers do that all the time — asking me questions about prices, like “Why is this one this price?” All normal questions you get as a record shop owner.

He bought a couple, spent a while, then left. I thought that was the end of it.

Then, maybe an hour later, he came back — again, not unusual. Sometimes people have a rethink, or check a list on their phone and realise they don’t have something they thought they did. He came back in. Again, other customers were in the shop. He looked around and paid for one album that I’ll always remember.

As I turned left towards the till, the next thing — he was out of my sight. Suddenly, his head was by the side of my chair, hip level, and he stabbed me with a syringe between the armrest of the revolving chair.

He ran out. I had the presence of mind to follow him around the back of the shop. He was about to get into his red car. Very casual — he wasn’t rushing. I remember he took his jacket off, which was unusual. Thinking back, it was a warm day — why would a man carry a jacket? Well, probably now we know — he had a syringe in his pocket.

He casually put the bag across the driver’s seat into the passenger seat and got in the back. Then he saw me. He realised I hadn’t collapsed, I hadn’t passed out — I was still there. That’s when he looked shocked, got into his car, and drove it at me — between the two bollards at the side of the shop.

I dragged the advertising hoarding from the shop next door between my knees, and he drove the car straight at me, pushing me back with it.

By that time, the man from the glass shop had come out — it was his hoarding. I’m shouting to Sue, and then it all got very frantic.

He sat in his car. I actually went up to him and took a photo — I’ve got him on my phone, sat there with his arm on the window, as casual as if he were sitting at a traffic light. I said, “What is it? What did you do? What was it?” He said, “Water, mate.” And that’s the last thing I remember.

"I died on the footpath"

I remember asking for a chair. Chris brought one out. Then I slowly lost consciousness. I remember being on the floor, totally unable to move. I’ve never felt paralysis, but it was paralysis — totally unable to move a muscle or make a noise. I could hear things. I could hear people saying, “Can you hear me, Gary?” I could hear the police officer. I could hear sirens. I heard an officer ask, “What was in the syringe?” I think I heard him say “water” again. At one point, I saw him squirt the rest of the syringe against the wall — it evaporated quickly.

Apparently, I died on the footpath. My heart stopped. I remember vibrations — I think that was the ambulance. Pressure on my chest — that must have been CPR. I had cracked ribs from where one of the paramedics was kneeling on me.

I regained consciousness. They told me I had a second cardiac arrest in the ambulance. There must have been a delay, because I remember waking up in James Cook Hospital — lots of tubes, noises, injections.

I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything — I was blinded for a while. Then eventually, I saw uniforms and heard voices. Someone noticed my eyes were open — that I was conscious.

The biggest worry at that point was they thought the needle had broken off and was still inside me. The second worry was they didn’t know what substance had been used, which made me panic. If they didn’t know what it was, they didn’t know if I’d recover.

"I have no idea why"

I spent 30 years in the police, and I think that response, that instinct, made me go after him. I’ve spoken to people my age who said they would have just collapsed on the desk — and that’s what saved me. The doctors are certain that’s what saved me. If I’d stayed where I was, I would’ve had the heart attack with no one around. The next person to walk into the shop would have found me — by that time it might’ve been too late. No chance to be revived.

I’m grateful to everyone who helped. But the biggest thing for me is — I have no idea why.

He won’t admit it. He made some pathetic excuse about an argument, which didn’t happen — said he’d been thrown out, which he wasn’t. That’s all been disproven by CCTV. And still, he’s sticking to that story.

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