A 12-year-old charged with a machete murder has claimed his alleged victim put him a headlock and was then stabbed by a second youth of the same age.
The defendant, who cannot be named because of a court order, told jurors his co-accused attacked Shawn Seesahai and he did not know the 19-year-old had suffered a 23-cm deep fatal wound to his back.
Jurors have been told a machete went into the victim’s back, between his ribs, through his right lung, into his heart, and nearly came out of his chest.
Two 12-year-old boys are standing trial for murder at Nottingham Crown Court after denying the charge and blaming each other for the death of Mr Seesahai on Wolverhampton’s Stowlawn playing fields.
One of the defendants, who has admitted possession of the machete used in the attack, was questioned by his KC, Rachel Brand, on Thursday.
Assisted by an intermediary in the witness box, the boy said he was sitting with his co-defendant and a teenage girl on a bench, when he was approached by Mr Seesahai and another man on the night of November 13 last year.
Mr Seesahai, who was living in Birmingham but originally from Anguilla in the Caribbean, had told him to “move from here” and then towered over him, the boy claimed.
He told the court he answered “why” and then told the victim’s friend: “Get your friend out of my face.”
Saying he had grabbed the knife, which was still in its case, from the girl after she initially picked it up off the ground, the boy said it was taken out of his hand “a second later” by his co-defendant.
He said of the other 12-year-old: “He pulled the case off it (the machete).
“He said ‘Yo blood are you f****** dumb?’ and then he like kind of side-stepped towards me and Shawn.
“Shawn let me out of the headlock and started running and then his shoe came off, and then he tripped.”
According to the boy’s account, he and his co-accused both ran after Mr Seesahai.
The boy, whose co-defendant has yet to give evidence to the court, said: “I saw him hitting his legs with the knife.
“I saw (the other boy) hitting him and I was next to him and Shawn was trying to grab one of my legs.
“I tried getting him off my leg – I was wriggling my leg.”
Denying that he had punched, kicked or stamped on Mr Seesahai, the boy continued: “I wanted to say to him (the co-defendant) ‘stop, that’s enough’ – to stop hitting him.
“I didn’t know he was stabbed in the back.
“(The other boy) stopped hitting him. I was stood next to Shawn, looking at him… froze.
“I turned around and then (the co-accused) threw the knife to me in the air.
“I was going to catch it but I didn’t want it to cut me or hurt me so I turned around so it wouldn’t hit my arm or my face or anything.”
The youth said he then picked the knife up off the grass, retrieved its case from a nearby path and put the weapon back inside his tracksuit bottoms.
As he made off, the youth said, he felt scared, while his co-accused appeared shocked.
He told the court: “I had my hands on my head and was like ‘Why did you do that?’ He was so shocked he might not have heard me.
“His eyes were really wide.”
After being given a lift home by his grandmother, the boy said, he used bleach to clean the knife – which he had bought two months earlier for £40 from “a friend of a friend” – and hid it under his bed.
He then found out the victim had died when he was sent a screenshot of a social media post the following day.
During his evidence, the boy also denied wanting to give Mr Seesahai serious injuries.
In cross-examination by Paul Lewis KC, representing the co-defendant, the boy was asked questions about searches and videos found on mobile phones after the death.
Speaking from the witness box, the boy said he had sent screenshots showing himself and a friend holding a machete, to the female witness, because he “thought it was cool”.
Mr Lewis questioned the boy about why a track by rapper SJ was attached to a photo featuring a machete that he had sent via a mobile phone.
The boy said he did not really listen to SJ’s music, and did not know the performer’s real name, Jayden O’Neil-Crichlow, or that he was in prison for stabbing someone to death with a machete.
The boy’s co-defendant has denied a charge alleging possession of the machete. The trial continues.