Friend jailed over attempted murder
A MAN has been found guilty of trying to kill his friend before torching his home and leaving him for dead.
Steven Clark was accused of bludgeoning Lee Bone with a hammer before setting fire to his house on Wigmore Avenue, in Walker, as he lay unconscious on the floor.
Newcastle Crown Court heard the pair had spent the night with a third man taking drugs together on July 23 last year when tempers flared the following morning over the sharing of crack cocaine.
Prosecutors said Clark took a hammer from Mr Bone before launching a brutal attack, which saw him rain down at least six blows on his head.
He is then said to have dragged Mr Bone’s blood-soaked body as if he was a “piece of rubbish” into a sitting room before setting three seats on fire, including one next to the gas and electric mains.
Clark, 35, of no fixed abode, denied attempted murder and arson with intent to endanger life.
A two-week trial took place and, yesterday, a jury found him guilty of the charges after deliberating for nearly four hours.
Jurors had previously been told Clark had fled the scene in Walker and boasted about what he had done to another man and his expartner.
A neighbour saw smoke coming from Mr Bone’s house and ran in to pull his unconscious body from the property as the emergency services arrived. Mr Bone was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries, where he was resuscitated and immediately taken into surgery in order for fragments of bone to be removed from his brain.
He suffered a severe brain injury, a skull fracture, a puncture wound to his cheek, injuries to his arm and fingers and fractures to his arm, jaw and a rib.
The court was told he remains in hospital more than seven months after the attack and the prognosis of whether he will ever be able to lead an independent life again is still unclear. Giving evidence earlier this week, Clark told jurors it was the third man in the house, Nicky Stewart, and two masked intruders who had carried out the brutal attack on Mr Bone. The defendant said: “I was lying at the bottom of the bed watching TV when I heard a bang. I turned around and there was two people at the bedroom door with masks on and those things painter and decorators wear – boiler suits and they ran in and hit Lee with something.
“Nicky Stewart then picked something up with his right hand and struck Lee across the head with it.”
Clark told the jury he put his arm and leg up to protect himself but was taken by the intruders, who he didn’t recognise, into a smaller bedroom.
Clark was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder but initially told police he knew nothing about the attack on Mr Bone and hadn’t seen him “for days”.
He told jurors he lied to officers because of threats made against him and his family.
However, the jury found him guilty of the charges and he is now due to be sentenced in May.
Nicky Stewart then picked something up with his right hand and struck Lee across the head with it Steven Clark