ONE of the co-defendants in a murder trial told police he did not know the man who stabbed taxi driver Mohammed Mahroof.

In a police interview read out at Reading Crown Court today, Asif Ahram Mohammed, 26, denied all knowledge of the incident and claimed he did not even know co-defendant Mohammed Mahroof Mustafa.

Police informed Mustafa: "He (Mohammed) is saying he doesn't know who you are. He's never heard of you."

But Mustafa, 21, said he would be able to tell police Mohammed's name, where he lived and what he was wearing on the evening of the incident.

He told police there should be CCTV footage of the pair of them walking through High Wycombe town centre on their way to the Rye, where they planned to rob a taxi driver at knifepoint.

Mustafa admitted he had planned to carry out the robbery, but denied he had planned to kill driver Mohammed Mahroof, a father-of-two from Chiltern Avenue, High Wycombe.

In a police interview read out in court today, Mustafa said: "I felt like I needed to do more than threaten him. I was going to show him the knife and give him a little cut on the arm and say, I'm not playing around'.

"I was concerned he might have got the knife off me and twisted it around on me. I didn't know what would happen."

Mustafa said he wasn't facing his victim when he swung the knife at him, and added the taxi driver had moved from where he thought he was sitting.

"It was a robbery that went wrong," he told police. "It would only be one wound. There was no intention of killing, we just wanted money. I never intended to kill him or cause him serious injury."

Mustafa said Mohammed was standing nearby during the botched robbery, but the pair went their separate ways following the incident.

Mr Mahroof died on his way to Wycombe Hospital from a nine-to-ten centimetre stab wound to the neck on May 8 last year.

Both defendants deny murder. The trial continues.