MURDER DENIAL

Derek Hughes, 20, told Mold Crown Court that he first learned of the death when the police told him. He told the jury that his reaction to the news was one of surprise and dismay.

The main thing going through his mind was that he too could have ended up being stabbed on Talacre beach that night.

Delroy Harper, 18, was stabbed more than forty times at a beach in Wales in the summer of 1996.

Prosecutor Peter Hughes QC said that in police interviews the defendant expressed no surprised that Delroy had died when it should have been an awful shock.

The defendant insisted he was shocked and sympathetic but Mr Hughes QC put it to him that if this was the case why had he given police a false account.

But Hughes replied that he co-operated with police until they became convinced that he was responsible.

"They said I was nervous. What did they expect me to be?", he told the court, adding that once suspicion had fallen on him he was merely "looking after number one".

Asked why his own brother, who had given evidence for the prosecution, would tell lies to get him unjustly convicted of a murder he did not commit, Hughes put it down to their poor relationship. This stemmed from the fact that their mother gave more attention to the defendant.

He told the court that blood found in his trainers must have come from a cut in his finger.

Hughes then gave evidence that he had not gone to Talacre beach with Delroy for a second time on the night of the murder. Rather, he had got a lift home.

He also denied confessing to a 15-year-old friend that he had murdered Delroy, saying that was a lie.

Hughes disputed allegations that he had told others he would "get" his friend because he suspected him of stealing a sweatshirt from him.

The case continues.

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