JURORS in the Lee McKnight Carlisle murder trial have retired to begin deliberations and consider verdicts.
Six people — including a mother and daughter, and a father and his teenage son — stand accused of murdering 26-year-old Mr McKnight. He was brutally beaten inside an address at Charles Street in the city, during the early hours of July 24 last year, before being transported to the river Caldew and dumped in the water where his body was found by a farmer.
A post mortem revealed Mr McKnight died from drowning due to head, neck and chest injuries. A pathologist concluded that a diamanté-headed riding crop could have been used to inflict many of the injuries he sustained.
After hearing several weeks of evidence, a jury has also listened to closing speeches from the prosecution and defence barristers. Jurors have also heard legal directions and a summing up of the evidence by the trial judge, Mr Justice Hilliard.
This concluded this afternoon when Mr Justice Hilliard sent the jury out to start their deliberations.
Jamie Davison, Arron Graham and Coral Edgar, all aged 26; along with her mother, 47-year-old Carol; Paul Roberts, who is 51, and his 18-year-old son, Jamie Lee Roberts, all deny murder. They also face lesser, alternative charges.
Mr Justice Hilliard said at the moment he could only accept unanimous verdicts from jurors, and had told them of their impending deliberations: “There is no pressure of time at all.”
