‘I killed him in a tragic accident’

An electrician accused of beating a millionaire banker to death in London’s West End told a court it was a ‘tragic accident’.

Paul Mason, 52, CEO for Qatar National Bank, dined at the exclusive Ivy Club before he was attacked by electrician Steven Allan, 34, on 15 December 2020.

Doctors battled to save Mr Mason and carried out a procedure to replace part of his skull with a sheet of titanium, but he died six months later.

Allan claims he was just trying to retrieve his friend’s phone and did not mean to hurt Mr Mason.

He said his colleague had gone into a ‘strip club’ in Cambridge Circus so he approached someone called Gary McGuiness and asked him if he knew where it was.

Mr McGuiness suggested he call his friend to see if he was okay.

The pair then saw Mr Mason, with his phone lit up and Mr McGuiness asked if that was Allan’s friend.

Allan claims Mr McGuiness said ‘is that your friend’s phone’ which lead them to believe the phone had been stolen.

Prosecutor Jane Bickerstaff asked: ‘Mr McGuiness said “is that your mate there?”, didn’t he?

Allan replied: ‘No, if he said is that your mate I’d have known if that was my mate or not.’

Ms Bickerstaff asked: ‘Why would he be saying is that your mate’s phone when neither of you thought anything had happened to his phone? As you’ve said if you had been sober you’d have said “no that’s not him.”

Allan replied: ‘We knew he was in a place and neither of us knew what that place was. We did think he could have got mugged, I definitely thought his phone had been taken off him and Mr McGuiness prompted me to go and check.

‘As soon as Mr McGuiness pointed at him my mind started racing and I didn’t think clearly.’

Ms Bickerstaff said: ‘Had you not noticed that basically every other person on that street was on their phone?

‘The reality was he was just walking along and tyring to find his Uber.

‘You would have looked across and seen a well-dressed middle aged man looking at his phone. What was it about him that made you think in the last two minutes he had stolen somebody’s phone?

Allan replied: ‘It was simply the direction he was coming from and Mr McGuiness pointing him out.’

Ms Bickerstaff asked: ‘Does it seem like madness to you now that you could have thought that?’

Allan replied: ‘Yes it was madness. It was a tragic accident.’

Ms Bickerstaff said: ‘Well it wasn’t an accident was it? You did these things. You made it happen.’

Allan: ‘I didn’t intend for that to happen no.’

Ms Bickerstaff said: ‘In that moment you decided that man had taken your friend’s phone, which you’ve just agreed sounds like madness now.

‘You told the jury that you thought he might have been mugged or robbed or worse, he might have been held against his will.

‘This is all very dramatic to have happened in just two minutes isn’t it. It seems like madness.’

‘It does,’ Allan replied.

‘You thought they took his phone and then answered it when you called and said “hello” and were using it in the street?

‘Do you agree now that all these thoughts are insupportable, they’re nonsense aren’t they?

‘They’re insupportable because you were so drunk, I suggest,’ Ms Bickerstaff said.

‘No I wasn’t drunk. I think my mental health made me take leave of my sense, not my state of drink,’ Allan replied.

Ms Bickerstaff asked: ‘What you did over those next few seconds was you went and acted in a way that was completely out of character for you. You used those words earlier.

‘Why did you behave completely out of character?’

Allan replied: ‘I think I genuinely had a panic attack that night.’

He said he approached Mr Mason to say it was his friend’s phone and Mr Mason told him to ‘f–k off’.

The barrister said Mr Mason would not have used those words and he actually said ‘go away’.

She said: ‘He’d obviously in his own mind decided to let the matter be because he turned his back to you.

‘He walked about five or six steps away from you with his back to you. Why was it that you ran after him and began using violence on him?’ Ms Bickerstaff asked.

‘At this point I was certain that it was Taylor’s phone and I don’t know why and it does seem crazy but that is what I thought at the time,’ Allan replied.

‘You didn’t decide to phone the police, or flag down a passing police officer, you decided to act as a vigilante,’ said Ms Bickerstaff.

‘You didn’t just grab the phone, you started using overt violence, didn’t you?’

Allan replied: ‘There was force used but I certainly didn’t think that if I pushed him he was going to bang his head on the pavement.’

‘You ran up to him from behind and you say pushed, I say punched, but you applied sufficient force to send him flying onto his bottom towards the pavement.

‘Is it therefore a case of not knowing your own strength?’ Ms Bickerstaff asked.

‘I think so yes,’ Allan replied.

‘What I’m suggesting to you is what we are watching there was someone who completely lost control of themselves. The red mist had come down, you were angry weren’t you?’ Ms Bickerstaff said.

‘No,’ Allan replied.

Ms Bickerstaff said: ‘And for those few second you behaved in a way that I accept was out of character, but what you did to him was in the intent to cause him really serious harm.’

Allan replied: ‘No absolutely not.’

The prosecutor said: ‘I’m sure you are very sorry now. It probably has caused you a lot of anxiety but that doesn’t take away from the fact that when you did it you had completely lost it

‘Nobody has ever suggested that you intended to kill him, nor I’m sure did you foresee that he would crack his skull on the pavement, but when you were punching him you intended to cause him some serious harm and that is why you carried on doing it.’

Allan, of Hook, Hampshire, admits manslaughter but denies murder.

The trial continues.