Murder accused ‘said I love a good straightener’ after fatal brawl
Trial hears message sent by defendant but he insists incident was ‘absolutely not a straightener’
AMAN accused of murdering Ormskirk teenager Matthew Daulby told a friend he ‘loves a good straightener’, in the aftermath of a fatal street brawl, a court heard.
Finley Cook is one of two men accused of murder following a large-scale fight in which 19-year-old Matthew was stabbed in the chest. The 20-year-old, of Heskin Lane, Ormskirk, is accused of running into the fight with a knife in his hand although he is not alleged to have caused the fatal injury to Matthew.
However, speaking from the witness box at Preston Crown Court yesterday (March 6), he denied having an interest in knives and said he thought the brawl in Railway Road was “a punch up.”
Cook told the jury there was no plan between himself, Henry Houghton, 19, and a third man who can not be identified, before the violence broke out on July 29.
After the fight, he messaged a man from the Maghull group, saying: “Not here to beef with you at all”.
Cook told the court at that stage he did not know anyone had been seriously injured.
He said that at around midnight he had left the other two men in an alley and was walking towards the Lime Tiger when he passed the Maghull group.
“As I got to the back of the group I started to get hassle, saying ‘ring your mates.’”
Cook said he did not know what the men were referring to, and just wanted to get on with his night out. “I didn’t want to start pressing buttons”, he said. He told the court he carried on walking and only turned back when he heard a commotion behind him.
“I heard a scuffle and I heard shouting. I turned around. It all happened so quickly. I walked towards it but when I noticed it was (the third man) I began running.”
Cook said he ran towards the fight to break it up, and was initially shepherding people. He only began fighting when three men attacked him, he said. He insisted at no point was he holding a knife and did not see anyone from either group carrying a weapon.
Following the brawl, Cook returned to the Alpine Bar before going to a friend’s flat in Ormskirk. In a series of messages with a member of the Maghull group, who he said he had always been on good terms with, he said:
“Not here to beef with you at all. I was backing my mates, standard, same way as you were backing yours. I’m not a little rat that’s going to do stupid s*** . Love a good straightener.
“What are we going to do about what’s just happened?”
When asked to explain what a ‘straightener’ was, Cook said it was a one-on-one fist fight, which would end with a handshake. He admitted he enjoyed that kind of fight, but insisted the large-scale violence which erupted on July 28 was absolutely not a straightener.
Cook told the jury that in the hours after the fight, he heard rumours someone had been stabbed in Ormskirk, but did not know if it was anything to do with the incident he had been involved in.
In the early hours of the morning, he searched local news websites, looking for information.
In cross examination, he was shown photos and a video captured from his mobile phone, depicting knives.
In one, a young man could be seen waving a machete and singing along to the Sean Kingston song, ‘You’re just too beautiful’, but he said he was not the man in the video, and had only saved it because it had been sent to him and he thought it was funny.
He said a folding knife found during a police search of his bedroom was a stanley knife which he used for work, and kept on top of his toolbox. He said: “I would never, ever, go out on a night out armed with a knife. I’d never stab anyone. That’s not me.”
Cook and Houghton, 19, of Barrison Green, Scarisbrick, deny murder.
Proceeding