THE brother of Derek Harper, alleged to have murdered his teenage friend Delroy Harper in a frenzied knife attack on a North Wales beach, today (Wed) told a jury how he had washed blood off the defendant's trainer shoes.

Carl Hughes told the jury at Mold Crown Court that his brother had a cut finger and blood splattered on his legs and had explained to him how he had been in a fight with Delroy Harper, whose body was found with 41 stab wounds among the sand dunes.

The defendant had earlier told him that he was planning to get Delroy after the theft of a sweatshirt from their washing line.

He had also said that he would kill him but Carl Hughes said that he did not take that seriously.

Derek Hughes returned home that night and had put clothes in a carrier bag and took it with him after he had showered and changed and someone present had asked if he was going to burn it.

Carl Hughes said that his brother had cut a finger and wrapped it in pink toilet paper.

Cross-examined, he denied that he was telling lies because he had a grudge against his brother over the way that they had been brought up.

He agreed that as a child he had been jealous, for Derek Hughes appeared to be his mother's favourite but said that he was not making it up.

The jury was told by Carl Hughes that at the time he and Derek lived in a one-bedroomed flat in Butterton Road in Rhyl with their mother.

She had the bedroom and they slept in the living room, taking it in turns to sleep on the sofa.

Carl said that he had met Delroy a couple to times and he had stayed at the flat a couple of times - the last time about a week before he died.

After that occasion, Carl said that he noticed that one of his sweatshirts had been taken from the washing line and a few days later it was returned.

Derek had told him that he had seen a woman, a mother of a lad he knew, wearing it in a chip shop and he had said Delroy had been responsible for taking it.

Derek had told him that he had seen a woman, a mother of a lad he knew, wearing it in a chip shop and he had said Delroy had been responsible for taking it.

Derek was upset about it.

"He just said that he was going to get him.

"He said kill him, but he didn't mean it that way, like.

"I thought he was going to have a fight with him or something."

On the night that Delroy died, Derek had arrived back home at the flat at about 11pm, with Lee Barlow and a young lad.

Derek had "a bit of blood on him".

He was dressed in red shorts, a blue or purple T-shirt and white Reebok trainers, with a denim shirt wrapped around his arm.

There was "not too much" blood on his legs and there was blood on the top of the trainers.

Derek was a bit overactive, a bit-hyped, and said that he had a fight with Delroy.

"He told me a bit about the fight.

"He just said that he hit him a few times, walked off and got hit from behind.

"I was not interested so he didn't tell me any more.

"He said that he had punched him."

Carl Hughes claimed that the defendant had a shower, changed and put his shorts and T-shirt into a carrier bag.

Someone asked if he was going to burn it and the witness said he thought his brother said yes.

Derek asked him if he could use his black Kicker shoes and left with the other two.

The original trainers were left in the shower and Derek had asked him to clean them for him.

Carl Hughes said he washed the trainers with a sponge, had told Derek to take the laces because he would never get the blood out of them, and cleaned the trainers.

Later after the police had come around, Carl Hughes said that he had rubbed the trainers with a towel so that he would not get into trouble.

Mr Steer put it to him that the defendant had not been wearing the wet trainers left in the shower at all that night.

It was suggested that if he had seen a cut on his brother's finger it was at a later stage.

Carl Hughes said it could have been.

He had been drinking that night.

He agreed that when he initially spoke to police they had not mentioned the things he had told the jury but denied that he was lying.

Mr Steer put it to him that seeing blood, washing the trainers and the defendant saying he had been in a fight were simply not true.

"That is the way I remember it," the witness said.

He agreed that he and his brother were not really getting on at the time and that they would argue a lot.

As a child he used to resent that his mother seemed to prefer his brother to him and had run away on two occasions.

But he denied that he was telling lies in court because of that.

The witness said that he did not hate his brother and did not want to get him into trouble.

Derek Hughes, 20, who at the time of the killing in June 1996 lives at a flat in Butterton Road in Rhyl, denies the murder of Delroy, 18, originally from Runcorn, but who at the time had been living in Rhyl.

The prosecution say that they do not know what sparked off the violent attack on a path leading through sand dunes towards Talacre Beach but suggest that it was possibly over an alleged stolen sweatshirt.

It is alleged by prosecuting barrister Peter Hughes QC that after the killing Hughes then went home, showered and changed, burned his clothes on a miniature railway track at the Marine Lake in Rhyl and got rid of the knife, which was never found.

The trial before Mr Justice Sachs is proceeding.

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