“Team loyalty” among four men and two women accused of key roles in the alleged murder of Carlisle man Lee McKnight had broken down “to a pretty significant degree” in the aftermath of his death, a prosecutor has claimed.
Six people are on trial at the city’s crown court. They all deny murder after the body of 26-year-old Mr McKnight was found by a farmer in the River Caldew just before 5.30am on July 24 last year.
A pathologist concluded Mr McKnight was “beaten to the point of death” away from the scene of that gruesome discovery, in the Blackwell Hall area near Cummersdale.
Jurors have heard he sustained sickening multiple injuries, including 36 separate lacerations to his head alone – said to be consistent with him being beaten with the hard head of a riding whip.
Other injuries to his torso and legs, the court heard, suggested he was whipped with the flexible stem, “probably while he was secured or immobile in a chair” – a suggestion being that he “was a victim of torture”.
Jamie Davison, 26, allegedly hatched a plan to lure Mr McKnight to an address at Charles Street, off London Road, and is said to have meted out shocking violence in the address with the “extra muscle” of Arron Graham, also 26, and 18-year-old Jamie Lee Roberts. Coral Edgar, also 26, is alleged to have acted as “bait”, with her 47-year-old mum Carol providing the address and a Nissan Navara used to transport Mr McKnight to the river; Roberts’ dad, Paul, stands accused of helping the attackers and providing changes of clothing in the immediate aftermath.
Opening the case, prosecutor Tim Cray QC said: “Dirty work, as this undoubtedly was, tends to be most effective when it is done by people who know each other and be trusted to carry out their respective roles in the plan.
“This was certainly the idea here, although as you will see in a moment, team loyalty has broken down to a pretty significant degree between these defendants.”
Mr Cray gave jurors a summary of what was expected to be the six’s respective defences to the murder charge.
Davison, chasing a drug debt owed by Mr McKnight, “anticipated threats and a degree of controlled violence, but not serious violence”. His case was likely to be that he asked Graham and teen Roberts to assist him as “muscle”, but that the latter went “well over the top”. Davison claimed Roberts and his father took Mr McKnight away in the Nissan.
Graham denied presence at Charles Street and “had no involvement in attacking Lee”, nor putting him in the river or driving the Navara, the court heard.
Jamie Lee Roberts’ case was “something of the reverse of Davison’s”, said Mr Cray, agreeing he was recruited to enforce the debt but that it was Davison who went “over the top in attacking Lee”.
Coral Edgar agreed inviting Mr McKnight to Charles Street but denied being part of a drug debt enforcement plan.
“She says she was terrified at the violence that was inflicted on Lee and hid herself in the front room of the house while it was going on,” revealed Mr Cray.
Carol Edgar spoke of returning to the house in the Navara at 3.45am. “But her defence is that she then took a cocktail of hard drugs that simply rendered her oblivious to everything that had happened; was happening,” said the prosecutor.
Roberts senior, meanwhile, agreed going to Charles Street after 3am in response to a call from his son, bringing a change of clothing and being prepared to help. Of his case, Mr Cray said: “He said to the others that they should get help for the victim. He denies that he got in the Navara or had anything to do with taking Lee to the river.”
The prosecutor added: “The truth or otherwise of those defences will be at the heart of this case.”
The trial continues.
