Teenager escaped over fencing after 13-year-old’s murder, court told

A teenager accused of murdering a 13-year-old inflicted a six-inch deep stab wound, fled over fences and then caught a bus to a friend’s house to play video games, a jury has heard.

Wolverhampton Crown Court was told Jahziah Coke was found dead in the hallway of a house in Oldbury by paramedics responding to a 999 call on the afternoon of August 29 last year, having suffered a chest injury which “almost completely cut” one of his ribs.

A jury was told the teenager accused of murder is alleged to have inflicted two “penetrating” stab wounds to the victim’s stomach and chest, but told a friend they were “all an accident” during a row and struggle.

Opening the case for the Crown on Friday, prosecutor Kevin Hegarty KC told the court: “At the time the call was made Jahziah, a 13-year-old, was bleeding heavily.

“Those wounds had been caused by one or more sharp knives. The wound to his chest was approximately 15cm deep – six inches give or take.”

Mr Hegarty said a pathologist would tell the court that one wound was “where the knife has gone in and the other is where the point of the knife has come out, if you can imagine such a thing”.

The Crown alleges that a man aged in his 40s, who cannot be named for legal reasons, assisted the youth accused of murder to evade police until their arrest three days after the death.

A second boy was charged with murder, but the case against him was dropped before the trial began.

During his opening of the case to the jury of eight women and four men, Mr Hegarty said: “Paramedics went in through a door at the side of the house, which took them into the kitchen.

“From the kitchen they made their way into the hallway and there they found 13-year-old Jahziah Coke.

“He was the only person in the house.”

The court heard the accused youth made his way over a fence at the rear of the property moments before paramedics arrived, and then scaled other fences and caught a bus.

Mr Hegarty said: “The paramedics who had entered the house found Jahziah at the bottom of the stairs.”

Together with two doctors, they tried to save Jahziah “but his heart had stopped, they could not get it beating again” and he was declared dead.

Police searched the property and recovered knives but none had any blood on them, Mr Hegarty said, adding: “Either the traces of blood had been washed off or the knives were taken away.”

The defendant visited a female friend’s flat hours after the alleged murder, where they “hung out” for about three hours playing on a PlayStation and chatting, the court heard.

Mr Hegarty said: “There came a stage later in the evening when there was news on Snapchat that Jahziah was dead and (the female friend) asked (the boy accused of murder) about it.

“She described in her account to the police that he became emotional.”

The teenager accused of Jahziah’s murder then gave an account of what had happened to the female friend and her mother, the court heard.

“He said there had been a row,” Mr Hegarty told the jury. “And that Jahziah had got his knife and he told them that there had been a struggle – and during that struggle Jahziah was trying to stab him.

“But he grabbed his hand, twisted it away from him and Jahziah then dropped to the floor.

“He said he did not know that Jahziah had got stabbed. Neither did he explain how there were two penetrating stab wounds.

“He then claimed that it was all an accident and it shouldn’t have happened.”

The juvenile defendant then left the address in a taxi and was arrested three days later at an address elswehere in the West Midlands, where the adult was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.

The teenager denies murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter, while the adult facing trial denies assisting an offender by harbouring the accused youth with intent to impede his apprehension and prosecution.

Mr Hegarty told the jury: “It is a fact that (two boys) were charged with the murder of Jahziah.

“But subsequently the prosecution offered no evidence against (the second boy) at this court and that ended the case against him.”

The prosecutor said of the boy accused of murder, who cannot be named because of his age: “It is the prosecution case that when he inflicted the wounds on Jahziah … that when he did so he was acting unlawfully and intended to kill Jahziah or at the very least cause him really serious harm.

“Severe force was used to inflict the fatal wound and such was the force it almost completely cut the sixth rib of his right-hand side – and penetrated him by about 15cm.”

Details of the address where Jahziah was found cannot be published because of a court order.