Three in custody after stabbing

12:34am Sunday 31st August 2008

Three men are in police custody after a street attack in which the father of a new baby was stabbed to death and his brother was seriously injured.

Residents spoke of their shock at the attack in Elland, Halifax, West Yorkshire.

A friend of the brothers said the 33-year-old man who died had been arrested on Thursday when he tried to get back into a house from which he had been evicted.

He became involved in a fight in a street near his former property and both he and his 35-year-old brother, who was trying to intervene, were stabbed, the friend said.

Three local men, aged 28, 39 and 50, were arrested in connection with the incident, which happened in an area between Catherine Street and Langdale Street, and are being questioned by detectives.

Police said all the men involved were known to each other and it was not believed to be a random attack.

Residents living in the streets surrounding the scene of the attack said everyone knew each other in the area.

One man, who did not want to be named, said: "It's a really close place. Everyone's friends usually."

He said the dead man, who was named locally as Billy Khan, had a baby, believed to be about two-months-old, and that his brother was also a father.

"He was sound, he was a really good person, so is his brother," he said.