THE TEENAGE drug runner who fatally stabbed Nasir Patrice has given a jury his account of what happened.
The defendant, who was 16 at the time and cannot be identified due to his age, told Warwick Crown Court he was attacked and stabbed before jabbing out with his own knife to defend himself.
Nasir, age 17, suffered serious chest wounds during the incident in the flat in Tachbrook Road last January and collapsed and died from his injuries in the street outside.
The youth, now 17, from Lewisham, London, pleaded not guilty to Nasir’s murder and the attempted murder of Abdul Moustapha, who was stabbed to his abdomen.
The jury heard the background to the incident was a clash between rival drug dealers, and Natasha Owen allowed the defendant and two others to use her flat as a base.
And the defence case is that the defendant had been ‘set up’ to be robbed by Nasir, Mr Moustapha and a third man when they pushed their way in on the morning of January 15, and was acting in self-defence.
Giving evidence, the defendant said he had spent the night at the flat, and when he woke Miss Owen was out, although a homeless man she allowed to stay, Christopher Galvin, was there.
He had tried to call her before the buzzer to the flat went off.
He said the door to the room where he was sitting was half-closed, so he could not see the main door.
“Christopher Galvin opened the main door and I heard running. It sounded like a stampede, and I was approached by someone with a Rambo knife. He looked at me, and I looked at him.
“This was a split second, and he tried to swing at me. I put my legs up to try to defend myself, and he caught me with the knife to my left thigh.
“The knife I had was leant by the radiator.”
He agreed it was ‘a big knife,’ he said he always had with him in case of such situations, and he reached for it.
Asked what happened next by his barrister Adam Davis QC he said: “I got the knife out. He tried to swing his knife at me, and at this point I swung the knife at him.
“I felt it connect. He tried to knife me again, and I tried to swing back at him again. He tried to swing and missed again.
“I swung again. I connected. I move back a bit, but he’s still coming at me.”
“Someone else leaned over the first person, and I swung at him, to the upper body.
“I had dropped to the floor with the knife in my hand. They were both trying to attack me.
“As they’re trying to attack me I’m jabbing the knife. It was a life death situation, I’m thinking I’m going to be stabbed.”
Mr Davis asked: “When you connected with Patrice with the knife, why did you do that?” He answered: “Because he was attacking me.”
He continued: “I was jabbing out upwards, and I felt it connect with the second person.
“One of them turned round and went off, and the other one is still there and coming at me. I’m still jabbing at him with the knife, and he turns round and I keep jabbing.”
Earlier the jury heard Nasir had two deep wounds to his chest, one of which had gone through his body, and two other wounds inflicted from behind, as well as ‘defensive’ cuts to his hands.
The defendant said after they had run from the flat he had left with his knife down his trousers.
He said it was ‘a complete lie’ that he had smirked as he passed the group surrounding Nasir, who had collapsed outside.
Earlier in the trial Mr Moustapha gave evidence in which he said he was a friend of Nasir’s and that they had spent the night in Leamington.
When Mr Davis put to him that they had been drug-dealing and had been armed when they went into the flat, he responded: “Prove it.”
The trial continues.
