News: QC points finger at Hales
Injuries were not all caused by my client, claims lawyer
ENGLAND cricketer alex Hales may have inflicted head injuries on a man lying on the ground after being knocked out by teammate Ben Stokes, a court was told yesterday.
Hales, 29, told police he had not witnessed the drunken brawl in Bristol last September and that he arrived just as Stokes was arrested.
Yet Stokes’s defence counsel, gordon Cole QC, suggested in his 90-minute closing speech yesterday that some of Ryan ali’s injuries could have been caused by Hales rather than his client on trial for affray. Jurors heard allegations that Hales, who was never arrested or charged over the fight, may have ‘stamped’ on ali’s head up to three times as he lay prostrate in the road. They were also shown CCTV of the fracas.
ali, 28, who is also on trial, suffered a fracture to the left-hand side of his face, with swelling on his left eye and a cut above his eyebrow, a cracked lower left molar and a bruise behind his left ear.
Mr Cole also suggested Durham and England all-rounder Stokes was receiving an undue level of scrutiny because of his fame. He told the jury of six men and six women at Bristol Crown Court: ‘This is not part of me seeking to blame someone else. ‘You saw the footage. You will see Mr Hales on one occasion appearing to kick.
‘So, when the prosecution seeks to hang all the blame at Ben Stokes’s door by saying he rendered people unconscious, just look at what happened.
‘ Think about kicks and stamps. There’s no evidence before you – and I’m not suggesting for one minute that you should guess – but you can infer from what you know of injuries that were sustained.
‘ Sustained perhaps by alex Hales’s intervention? Blows, kicks and or stamps to the head area. Does it follow that all of these
injuries are properly attributed to
Ben Stokes? We say no. Mr Cole also asked the jury to consider: ‘Is this man [Stokes] getting special treatment because of who he is? Is this man being focused on because of who he is?’ Stokes claims he confronted ali and Ryan Hale, a former soldier, in the early hours of September 25 last year after overhearing them using ‘nasty’ homophobic language against gay clubbers Kai Barry and William O’Connor. He said he was acting as a peacemaker when tempers flared and he became fearful for his safety and lashed out at ali and Mr Hale in an act of self-defence.
However, nicholas Corsellis, prosecuting, told jurors that a drunken Stokes was the main ‘aggressor’ in the brawl, which erupted for no clear reason.
He claimed Stokes was in an ‘enraged’ state in the minutes beforehand, when he mocked Mr Barry and Mr O’Connor by mimicking their ‘flamboyant’ gestures and humiliating Mbargo nightclub bouncer andrew Cunningham for his ‘s*** tattoos’ and gold teeth.
Mr Corsellis also accused the cricketer of having a ‘selective memory’ of events around the night in question.
anna Midgley, ali’s solicitor, said there had been a ‘misunderstanding’ that caused violence to erupt, adding: ‘The prosecution says they don’t know how the incident started.’ Mr Corsellis said in his closing speech: ‘The footage demonstrates Mr Stokes in a way that is distanced from the admirable career he has.
‘He acted deplorably as the red mist came down and struck with such force that he rendered one person unconscious. We maintain that the footage demonstrates plainly and clearly that, having been confronted with violence, Mr Stokes moved away from selfdefence and became the aggressor himself.
‘If you become aggressor and act out in revenge and decide to punish the offender, you step away from the law, you commit an offence.’
Yesterday, Judge Peter Blair QC, the Recorder of Bristol, told jurors not to speculate on why the two gay men allegedly at the centre of the brawl had not been called to give evidence.
He added that it would be ‘wrong to guess’ what they might have said in the witness box.
Stokes, of Castle Eden, Durham, and ali, of Bristol, each deny a charge of affray.
The jury are expected begin their deliberations today.
Both Stokes and Hales, a nottinghamshire opening batsman, will face a Cricket Disciplinary Committee hearing following the conclusion of the affray trial.
‘Blows, kicks and stamps to the head’
You will see Mr Hales on one occasion appearing to kick. So, when the prosecution seeks to hang all the blame at Ben Stokes’s door ... just look at what happened
Gordon Cole QC, defence barrister for Ben Stokes in court yesterday