Cody Fisher: Girlfriend describes Birmingham nightclub stabbing death

The girlfriend of footballer Cody Fisher has described the moment she comforted him as he lay dying in a Birmingham nightclub.

Jess Chatwin had been enjoying a night out with Mr Fisher and friends at Crane in Digbeth on 26 December 2022 when a group of masked men attacked him on the dance floor.

They had smuggled in a large knife with a serrated blade which was plunged into the 23-year-old's chest, causing him to collapse and ultimately die among more than 2,000 revellers.

Remy Gordon and Kami Carpenter were convicted of his murder after a 10-week trial. A third defendant, Reegan Anderson, was cleared of murder and manslaughter but convicted of affray.

When she realised her boyfriend had been stabbed, Ms Chatwin said she needed to be at his side and reassure him "before it was too late".

"So I just kept telling him that I loved him and I was here," she said.

Jess Chatwin said the couple did everything together

The couple had been inseparable for much of the previous three years and she described them as "two peas in a pod".

"He was like, my best friend in the world. I'd tell him everything… we did anything and everything together," she said.

Mr Fisher's fate was sealed after he had brushed past Gordon two days before at Popworld, a busy bar in Solihull.

His best friend Dan Vann, who was with him, said the incident was so minor they thought nothing more of it.

"Literally nothing happened," he said. They had "just gently tapped this kid on the back" as they walked out to leave.

But Gordon wanted revenge and spent the next 48 hours trying to find out who they were.

'The biggest heart'

Despite the ski masks and balaclavas, Mr Vann, 24, said he recognised Gordon among the group approaching them in Crane.

"I saw his face, and I just like the connection made in my head straight away, thinking, 'that's the lad from Christmas Eve'," he said.

He did not know if it was coincidence he was there, but said he felt scared he would be stabbed as well.

Ms Chatwin said they had decided to go to Crane about a month before the event and a group of them booked to stay at an apartment in the city.

The couple had met through mutual friends in 2019 and instantly clicked.

"I used to say to him, 'I feel like I've known you forever'," she said.

"He had the biggest heart... He really just cared about everyone [and] just wanted the best for everyone."

Dan Vann said he still did not feel safe on a night out

When the men approached them in the club, Ms Chatwin said she first thought her boyfriend was going to be robbed and took his shoulder bag off him.

She said Mr Fisher was "as confused as everybody else was" at what was going on.

While his instinct was to get out of the club with Ms Chatwin, she said one of the attackers smacked a drink out of his hand and then he was headbutted.

"And then straight after they just started punching him, and then all these other people started coming out of the crowd from nowhere, and this big fight just came out," she said. "And I remember the crowd just moving."

She hit one attacker on the head before looking for Mr Fisher, who was suddenly on the floor.

At first she thought he had been knocked out and was "trying to wake him up".

But as she tried to move him sideways into the recovery position, she felt something in the way and then discovered the knife in his chest.

She was screaming when security staff arrived to give him CPR and then Mr Vann, who did not fully know what had happened, put his arms around her.

The nightclub lost its licence after the stabbing

"I thought he'd just been knocked out," he said.

"But obviously Jess was then screaming and crying her eyes out, so I grabbed her to comfort her, and that's when she shouted, 'why have they got knives in here?' Then that's when I realised he'd been stabbed."

Police and paramedics arrived and the pair were taken away from Mr Fisher into a room. Ms Chatwin said she then knew her boyfriend had died.

"Dan was like... this is Code, he's going to pull through. This is Cody we're talking about and then I just saw them walking in... and I knew what they were going to say," she said.

Wash off his blood

After hearing the news, she said she lost the feeling in her legs and was helped outside.

She said the "sky was blue" from the lights of police cars and ambulances and she felt she was in a "horror movie".

Cody Fisher played for Stratford Town and Bromsgrove Sporting, among other clubs

When she got home, her mother and sister helped her wash her boyfriend's blood off her legs.

Hours later when she met Mr Fisher's mother the pair hugged and cried together, she said.

"It's the realization that that has actually just happened as much as you're telling yourself it hasn't and it's all just been a bad dream and I'm going to wake up and he's still going to be here," she said.

"The whole night just replays in my head. Every single day. Every single night before you go to sleep.

"Everything reminds me of Code. Everything. Driving my car, I've still got the last Lucozade bottle he drank on Christmas Eve. He left it in my car, and it's still there."

Mr Vann said he and Ms Chatwin had become good friends because of what had happened and helped each other cope, but was unsure if he would ever get over it.

He said he had only had one or two nights out since losing his best friend and always needed to be with friends to feel safe.

The pair had met during their football apprenticeships at Walsall and went on to play together as semi-professionals at Stratford Town while going out socialising and on holidays together.

Mr Fisher had played football at Birmingham City's academy for 10 years before joining Walsall and also becoming a PE teacher.

"I could tell from the moment I met him that he was a good lad," Mr Vann said.

"We stayed close for the whole of our footballing career."

'Achieved so much'

He said he frequently thought of the happy memories they shared and a plaque and picture above the players' tunnel at Stratford Town meant "he's still with us there".

"Everyone knew him as a lovely lad," he said.

"He was always so like bubbly, like they said at the football club, that even when he has had a bad day, he's always got a smile on his face, so that just shows he's always a happy person and everyone knows he was."

Ms Chatwin said she had no words for his killers and her boyfriend's legacy should not focus on his death.

"I'd like him to be remembered for who he was, not what happened to him. He was so much more than what happened to him that night... he had done, achieved so much in his life and he impacted so many people," she said.