A MAN accused of stabbing two West Mercia police officers said he could not believe that he was capable of carrying out the attacks, Worcester Crown Court heard.

Following his arrest at his home near Leominster, Benjamin Cooper told police in interview: "I honestly can't remember stabbing anyone. It just isn't me.

"What you have told me has made me sick and I can't believe I am capable of doing something like that."

Cooper, aged 38, denies two charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The jury has been told that he has admitted two alternative charges of unlawful wounding.

The injured officers were Sgt Michael Doolan, who was knifed five times in the body but only one penetrated his outer jacket into his chest, and PC Alan Saffrey, who needed nine stitches in a wound in his right arm.

Sgt Doolan also needed an operation on his left index finger which was cut to the bone.

Cooper, of Humber Close, Steen Bridge, admitted in interview that he had been arguing with his wife Julie.

"I remember her saying to me I could go back to Worcester, but I don't know why she said it," Cooper said.

"I thought our marriage was finished and that was why she told me I could go to Worcester."

Earlier, PC Stephen Heathcote, a dog handler, told the jury that he had asked Cooper to leave the house peacefully in the early hours of July 8, 2001, after officers were alerted to reports of a domestic dispute.

"He said he didn't want to come out because he knew the system," PC Heathcote said yesterday.

"He asked how the officers that had been injured were," he added. "Then he said he thought he would be shot because of what he had done to the police officers."

Seventeen-year-old David Crowther told the hearing that he had spent much of the evening at Cooper's house.

He said family members had been "talking and drinking", and that when he left the house, 20 minutes before police were called, Cooper was slurring his words and swaying as he walked.

The trial continues.