I've no idea why stranger tried to kill me

A RECORD shop owner who was stabbed with a loaded needle may never know why one of his customers tried to kill him.

- By ESTHER HALLIGAN

Darren Harris, 58, injected shop owner Gary Lewis with the paralysing drug rocuronium, on July 2 last year. Harris had driven from Middlesbrough to visit Betterdaze, in Northallerton. He left the shop after buying a record, but returned minutes later to buy another one.

He made small talk with Mr Lewis and Mr Lewis’ friend and employee Sue Allen, telling them he was a nurse. In fact, Harris had arrived in Northallerton with a syringe full of the powerful muscle relaxant. He had stolen the rocuronium from the-atre at James Cook University Hospital, where he worked as a specialist anaesthetist nurse.

Harris stabbed Mr Lewis in the buttocks with the needle, while Mr Harris was serving him at the cash till. Mr Harris, 65, suffered a cardiac arrest after running out of the shop after Harris. Harris tried to drive at the shop owner, before other shop workers saw what was happening and came to help.

"Apparently I died on the footpath, my heart stopped on the footpath,” Mr Lewis said. “I regained consciousness and they tell me I had a second cardiac arrest in the ambulance.”

Callous Harris insisted he had injected the shop owner with water as medics battled to save Mr Lewis’ life before he was taken to James Cook University Hospital.