‘I acted in self-defence’ insists student accused of one punch killing
ASTUDENT accused of killing a dad with a single punch sobbed as he told a jury he acted on ‘impulse’ after being threatened with a headbutt and racially abused.
Jafar Ali, 20, claims he acted in self-defence when he hit Keith Maden.
The 59-year-old suffered a ‘catastrophic’ head injury after he hit the ground outside a takeaway in Rochdale town centre.
After the prosecution completed its case, Mr Ali took to the witness stand at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court and told the jury he had acted on ‘impulse’.
He claimed Mr Maden had been angry, pushed him and threatened to headbutt him. He also claims he was called a ‘ **** ing P***’.
Mr Ali told the court he was on a psychology of sports course at the University of Salford at the time of the incident on September 28 last year.
He went into Rochdale town centre to meet a group of friends.
They were throwing bangers.
After paying for his order at Dixy Chicken, he said he went outside to have a cigarette.
Mr Ali told the jury he then saw Mr Maden stamp out a cigarette on the floor and blow smoke in his friend’s face.
Crying, Mr Ali said Mr Maden appeared ‘angry’ and accused him and his friends of ‘having a f***ing attitude problem’.
The defendant said he wanted to ‘de-escalate the situation’ by making a joke.
He said he told Mr Maden: “You look **** ing twisted (drunk).”
He said Mr Maden stepped closer and again accused him of having an attitude problem, before threatening to headbutt him three times.
The defendant said Mr Maden could ‘barely walk straight’.
He said Mr Maden then poked him on his hand.
“I said ‘don’t touch me’ and as soon as I said ‘don’t touch me’ he said under his voice calling me a **** ing P***,” Mr Ali told the jury.
He said Mr Maden pushed him and was ‘right in my face’.
“I could smell alcohol on his breath. He was red, huffing and puffing,” he told the jurors.
Mr Ali described his punch as a straight jab which ‘skimmed’ the side of the man’s head.
He denied a claim from a witness he had thrown punch.
Asked why he punched Mr Maden, Mr Ali said: “Impulse, because he said he was going to headbutt me.”
He said he then ran home. a ‘swinging’
Mr Maden, said to be 5ft 4, had consumed only two drinks that night, according to the barmaid at The Reed Hotel on Yorkshire Street, the jury was earlier told.
She had known him 20 years and regarded him as a ‘polite, quiet man, who did not cause trouble’, according the prosecution.
Mr Maden suffered a stroke in 2016, which had left him unsteady on his feet and he sometimes slurred his speech, according the prosecution.
Mr Ali, of Church Stile in Rochdale, denies manslaughter.
The jury has now retired to consider its verdict.
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