Canonbury teen Vaso Kakko had stabbed his killer with a “Rambo-style knife” and pulled a taser on him during an argument about a haircut weeks before his death, jurors have been told.

The Old Bailey heard how Vaso, 17, and Uchechukwu Ejimonye, 20 – known by his street name Realz – had fought after Vaso insulted Ejimonye’s appearance.

Ejimonye is accused of murdering Vaso by stabbing him on November 23 just before 8.45pm, in a small community garden off Yoke Close on the Shearling Estate, Holloway.

The 6cm-deep neck wound severed his jugular and ceratoid veins, as well as his voicebox, and would have “bled rapidly and quickly become life-threatening” according to the pathologist.

Paramedics and the air ambulance tried to save the former Mary Magdelene student’s life at the scene but he was dead within 35 minutes.

Ejimonye - who fled the scene and was arrested seven days later in Bognor Regis, Sussex - denies murder.

But he admits possession of the knife and does not dispute he stabbed Mr Kakko, claiming he acted in self defence and that the incident was “part of a feud between him and the victim”.

The Old Bailey heard on Monday how the defendant, victim and the two witnesses to the attack – who cannot be named for legal reasons – were a “group of friends and acquaintances who knew each other”, who hung out around Caledonian Road where they had been smoking cannabis together that night.

Jurors were told how a month earlier, on Ejimonye’s birthday, the group of friends had been drinking when Vaso turned up and allegedly began insulting Realz “about the way he looked”.

Defence barrister David Aaronberg said: “It was about his haircut, stupid things. Things got out of hand – Vaso produced a taser gun and Realz produced a knife.”

One of the witnesses denied this chain of events, saying he had “never seen Vaso with a knife”.

Vaso then went off on a bike, and according to Mr Aaronberg he returned in a black hoodie and mask and carrying a Rambo-type knife, which he “plunged” into Ejimonye’s leg.

At hospital Ejimonye was “frightened of saying Vaso stabbed him”, and “pretended he hadn’t been stabbed and he fell on some glass”.

On the night of Vaso’s death, the witness heard Vaso and Ejimonye “speaking aggressively” to each other at about 7pm, and calling each other names like “d**khead” and “pr*ck” – but the witness “didn’t think it was that serious”.

Just over an hour later, as the witness walked off to get a light for his cannabis joint and make a phone call, Vaso was stabbed.

Mr Aaronberg said: “We know how it ended, but you don’t know how it began, do you? There were feathers rising in the air which we understand must have come from Vaso’s jacket.

“You can’t help with what would have caused Realz to stab Vaso but you were very frightened by the result, which is that he was literally bleeding to death in that square.”

The trial continues.