Man ‘did not have murderous intent’, jury told
A MAN who admits stabbing a teenager found dead in a dockyard did not have “murderous intent”, a jury has heard.
Leon Clifford is one of the alleged members of an “armed and deadly gang” accused of killing Cardiff teenager Harry Baker who was found in Barry Intermodal Terminal on August 28, 2019. The 17-year-old was bloodied, stripped, and covered in stab wounds.
Clifford, 23, Peter McCarthy, 37, and Ryan Palmer, 34, Lewis Evans 62, and Raymond Thompson, 48, who are all from Barry, as well as Leon Symons, 22, from Ely, in Cardiff, and a 17-year-old from Cardiff who cannot be named for legal reasons all deny murder and are on trial at Newport Crown Court. All of the defendants except Clifford and Evans are also charged with violent disorder, which they deny, while Evans alone faces a charge of assisting an offender, which he denies.
Yesterday prosecutor Paul Lewis QC concluded his closing speech to the jury. It was then the turn of Caroline Rees QC, on behalf of Clifford, to address the jurors.
During the trial Clifford chose not to give evidence but decided to “exercise his right to silence as he is entitled in law to do,” said Ms Rees. “You have been invited to draw an adverse inference but you must only do so if you think it is appropriate to do so. We would say it would be unfair to hold his right to silence against him.”
In the aftermath of the fatal attack Clifford made a series of “unguarded confessions made in a raw and emotional state”, his barrister said, telling the jury: “There is no evidence he was bragging or showing off.” On one such occasion he told his girlfriend he had hit Harry Baker but “had not wanted him to die”.
Ms Rees said: “There is an absence of bragging or showing off from Leon Clifford or being pleased with what he had done. None of the admissions shows an intent to kill or any satisfaction Harry Baker had died. The opposite in fact.
“If he intended to kill or cause serious injury he would have been showing off in front of his co-defendants.”
During the prosecution closing speech Mr Lewis said it was the Crown’s case that all defendants are guilty of murder “and it matters not who wielded the knife”.
Mr Lewis told the jury: “What is plain is the attack on Harry was ferocious. The pathologist found Harry suffered nine wounds caused by sharp objects. There were slash wounds and stab wounds.”
The trial, before Mr Justice Picken, continues.