A man accused of murdering a semi-professional footballer inside a nightclub has claimed a co-defendant has “manufactured” lies, including an alleged confession, to disguise his own involvement in the stabbing.
Kami Carpenter told jurors he did not make a confession to his friend Remy Gordon about the killing of Cody Fisher, who was stabbed in the chest at Birmingham’s Crane nightclub on Boxing Day 2022.
Gordon said earlier in a trial at Birmingham Crown Court that he was “not the killer” and that Carpenter had admitted during a conversation in a takeaway that he had stabbed 23-year-old Mr Fisher and left the knife at the scene.
Prosecutors allege Gordon, Carpenter and a third defendant, Reegan Anderson, murdered Mr Fisher in “awful revenge” after a minor altercation at a nightclub in Solihull two nights earlier.
Giving evidence on Friday, Carpenter denied stabbing anyone at the Crane, or knowing that anyone had been stabbed while he was inside the club.
Claiming he had later changed his clothes because they were wet and smelled of alcohol and body odour, and that he was not worried about DNA being found on them, Carpenter denied telling Gordon he had caused Mr Fisher’s death.
Carpenter told the jury: “Remy is lying.”
Answering questions from prosecutor Michael Duck KC, Carpenter agreed with the suggestion that the “lethal” knife used to kill Mr Fisher must have been taken past nightclub security checks.
Mr Duck asked Carpenter: “Who do you believe, having looked at the evidence, killed Cody Fisher?”
Carpenter answered: “I can’t be certain who killed Cody Fisher but from what I have seen in the evidence and the lies that Remy has manufactured to exonerate himself, the only reason I believe somebody would do that is to actually disguise their own intentions and what they have done.”
Mr Duck said: “You suggest on the evidence you have seen, he is the killer?”
“I can’t say for certain,” Carpenter replied. “That’s just a conclusion I have drawn.”
Carpenter, 22, who was asked if one of his group at the Crane had taken the murder weapon into the club, added: “Looking back now it’s definitely not the company that I should have been keeping.”
Carpenter told the court he had traded punches with Mr Fisher but denied stabbing him or knowing that he had been stabbed.
Asked why his DNA was found on a knife sheath, discovered in a street near the Crane and alleged to relate to the murder weapon, Carpenter said: “I don’t know how my DNA got on the knife sheath.
“I didn’t discard the knife sheath and I didn’t plant the knife sheath where it was recovered.”
Rejecting Mr Duck’s suggestion that he was attempting to “lie his way out of responsibility” for what had happened, Carpenter said: “I am sorry for what happened to Cody – I truly am – but I didn’t stab him.
“I had been hit and started pushing out and swinging punches back. There wasn’t any plan at all.”
Carpenter, of no fixed address, denies charges of murder and affray.
Gordon, 23, of Cofton Park Drive, Birmingham, and Anderson, 19, of no fixed address, also deny both charges.
In his evidence earlier this month, Gordon said he had not encouraged anyone to cause really serious harm to Mr Fisher and did not wish to cause really serious harm himself.
Mr Fisher, a former Birmingham City academy member from Redditch who also played for Stratford Town and Bromsgrove Sporting, died at the scene.
The trial continues.