Jury retires to consider trial verdicts
England cricketer Alex Hales may have been responsible for injuries caused to a man who was later knocked unconscious by team-mate Ben Stokes, the all-rounder’s defence barrister has claimed.
Durham all-rounder Stokes, 27, has insisted he was acting in self-defence when he punched Ryan Ali, 28, and Ryan Hale, 27, near a nightclub in the Clifton Triangle area of Bristol in the early hours of September 25 last year.
He has claimed Ali and Mr Hale were being homophobic towards two gay men, Kai Barry and William O’Connor, after leaving the Mbargo nightclub.
The jurors, who were due to retire to consider their verdicts today, have been told the precise start to the violence is unknown, but Ali swung a beer bottle at Stokes’ team-mate Alex Hales.
Ali delivered a glancing blow to the shoulder of Mr Barry.
Stokes then allegedly knocked Ali to the floor.
Bristol Crown Court has heard Mr Hales kicked Ali in the head and stamped on him as he lay on the ground, with Stokes then knocking out Mr Hale.
The all-rounder is accused of punching Ali unconscious a short time later, after an off-duty police community support officer attempted to stop the fighting.
Ali suffered a fracture to the medial orbital wall on the left-hand side of his face, with swelling on his left eye, a laceration to his eyebrow, a cracked lower left molar and a bruise behind his left ear.
Jurors have been told Mr Hales was interviewed under caution, but was not arrested or charged in connection with the incident.
Gordon Cole QC, representing Stokes, questioned whether his client had caused all of the injuries sustained by Ali given Mr Hales’s alleged involvement.
He asked the jury to carefully consider footage taken by student Max Wilson, who began filming from his bedroom window after hearing shouting from the street below.
“This is not part of me seeking to blame someone else,” Mr Cole told the jury in his closing speech for Stokes’s defence. “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.”
Stokes, of Stockton Road, Castle Eden, and Ali, of Forest Road, Bristol, each deny a charge of affray.