‘I heard a loud crack’ – witness
AMAN found his 24-year-old friend lying unconscious and bleeding on the floor moments after hearing “a loud crack”, a court has heard.
Gavin Rees, 24, from Maesteg, never regained consciousness and died three weeks after being hit by Jeffrey Shepherd, who is on trial at Cardiff Crown Court accused of manslaughter.
The court has heard the incident happened in a car park near Maesteg Community Hospital in Neath Road at around 5pm on August 30 last year.
Shepherd, 45, of Dros Col in Llanharry, denies the charge of manslaughter.
Giving evidence on the third day of the trial yesterday, Mr Rees’ friend Nathan Healy said he and another friend Kye Edwards had met up with Mr Rees on the day of the incident to go to the gym together.
Mr Healy said they were at Mr Rees’ home for 45 minutes while they waited for him to get changed into his gym clothes. The witness said that while having a cigarette in the garden, he heard Mr Rees speaking to someone on the phone.
He said: “I heard something about a van in work but I asked him no questions. I believe it was an incident in work, I was having a fag by his back door. He said he dented someone’s van and would sort it out. There were no raised voices, it was quite quiet.”
When the trio left for the gym, Mr Healy said Mr Rees drove them a different way as he needed to pull over to speak to someone about a dent in a van.
He said: “Gavin jumped out of the car and went round the other side of this van so me and Kye couldn’t see him. He was calm, there was no reason to think there was anything wrong.
“It was less than a minute they were speaking when I heard a loud crack as if somebody was snapping wood on their knee. I heard someone shout ‘you’re paying for my f ****** van.’ The passenger door of the van shut and it was gone, speeding off with erratic driving.
“Me and Kye jumped out of the van to help. I saw Gavin lying on the floor and he wasn’t conscious. I put my hand underneath his head and tried to wake him up. He was making a grunting noise and his chest was going in and out like he was having a fit or palpitations or something. There was blood on my hand from the back of his head and I stayed there until the ambulance left.”
Mr Healy was asked by prosecutor Michael Jones QC if he was aware Mr Rees had come out of hospital the day before, and if he was aware that Mr Rees had had a scan.
Mr Healy said: “Yes, he told me he had a full body scan and it was all clear. The only injury he had was a wrapped up arm.”
During cross-examination, David Elias QC, defending, asked Mr Healy: “You weren’t really going to the gym that evening were you?”
Mr Healy responded: “We were going to the gym, that’s why Gavin had shorts and a T-shirt on. That’s the truth, I am not a liar.”
Mr Elias asked Mr Healy why he and Mr Edwards did not call an ambulance for 10 minutes after Mr Rees was hit, and said they waited for members of the public to do it instead.
Mr Elias said: “Did you want the emergency services there? Why didn’t any of you phone for them to come? You didn’t want people there because you knew why you were there in the car park.”
Mr Healy said: “How dare you say that. How can you stand there in the court of law and say that?”
The trial continues.