A MAN stabbed to death outside Tesco may have been killed because he gave his attacker a "nasty look", a court heard today.

Kevin Gale, 50, chased after Lee Turner, 39, who had popped to the store in Barnstaple to buy some milk on August 3 last year.

Prosecutors said Gale, who has paranoid schizophrenia, followed Mr Turner, who was bare-chested, for 100 yards before the attack.

Jurors have been told their role is to decide whether Gale, who is unfit to plead, carried out the attack.

The court heard Mr Gale had been wearing a distinctive bright blue bandanna, knee length black and yellow socks and silver boots.

Sara Brunton QC, prosecuting, said: “There was some brief exchange between them.

“Bearing in mind their appearances one of them may have made a provocative comment to the other, or a nasty look – we don't know.

"We will never know precisely what was said or done."

Gale, who has asked to be known as “Mr Kit Kat”, then started to follow Mr Turner. Witnesses said he appeared “angry and agitated”.

The 50-year-old is accused of using a “Spider-Man” throwing knife to slash Mr Turner four times in his back, shoulder and chest.

He died from “catastrophic blood loss” in hospital later that day.

Gale was arrested in the early hours of the next morning at his home in Barnstaple.

He was still dressed in the same clothes.

The court heard Gale had suffered with serious mental health issues for a number of years including delusions, psychosis and paranoid schizophrenia.

He been under the care of the mental health team in north Devon since 2011 but had not been in trouble with the police before, the court was told.

Mr Brunton said Gale directed police to where the knife was, near to the scene, and two other knives from the same set were found at his home.

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He told the court: “This was a man seriously out of control and who somehow slipped between the cracks of medical and psychological care.”

In police interview Gale said Mr Turner had looked at him “in a strange way and that made him feel intimidated”.

The trial continues.