A drug dealer was brutally stabbed in the chest an
A drug dealer was brutally stabbed in the chest and left to bleed to death outside a north London housing estate, an Old Bailey jury heard.
Jamaican-born Jason Gibson, 29, was allegedly knifed outside his sister-in-law’s home in Kentish Town by acquaintances Roy Scott, 38, and Edward Green, 31.
After the attack, Green grabbed the dying
father-of-four’s man’s mobile telephone and ran off with Scott, the jury heard.
The court heard that there was no apparent motive for the killing.
Brian Altman, QC, prosecuting, told the jury: ‘The prosecution say that these defendants are jointly liable for the unlawful killing of this man.
‘Both had participated in the taking of the knife from the kitchen of the flat, and the knife was in their joint possession.
‘It was there, we submit, for a purpose.
‘They had embarked on a joint enterprise, we submit, to do at least really serious harm to Jason Gibson, if not to kill him.
‘The fact that only one of the two stabbed him while the other looked on is not the point.
‘If both agreed to the course that was adopted then both are guilty of murder, no matter who used the knife.
‘
He said Mr Gibson was knifed outside a block of flats known as Edington, on a council estate in Allcroft Road, Kentish Town.
‘The attack left Gibson with a very bad laceration to his face and a stab wound to the upper chest which severed a major artery and punctured his left lung.
‘Unfortunately there are no direct eye witnesses.
‘What, you may ask, is the motive?
‘The prosecution in fact do not have to prove any motive at all.
‘It is nice if you have it but you don’t always, and at the present time, on all the available evidence, the prosecution cannot identify with any precision what the true motive was or may have been.
‘
The jury heard that Mr Gibson, a father of four, had been in Kentish Town with his wife.
His wife’s mother and two sisters lived in the area, and she spent most of February 9, 2003, at her mother’s house.
Mr Gibson chatted to friends in a street in the area, it is claimed.
That evening, Scott, known as ‘Legal Blacks’ and Green, known as ‘Eddie Boo’, went to the flat of Kelly Closier, Mr Gibson’s wife’s sister, in the Edington block.
While there, Scott took a knife from the kitchen, it is claimed.
He turned to Green and allegedly asked him: ‘Would this cut through wire?’
The two men then left the flat, it is claimed.
Later Ms Closier’s boyfriend, Dennis Edwards, left the flat to buy cigarettes and found Mr Gibson collapsed on the ground outside the block, the jury heard.
Mr Edwards telephoned the man’s wife, Clare Gibson, and she arrived within minutes to find her husband pale and sweating profusely, it is claimed.
Mr Altman said: ‘Clare Gibson asked him who had done this to him.
‘His immediate response was to say ‘Legal’.
‘The prosecution say that this was a direct reference to the defendant Scott.
‘
Mr Gibson pleaded for his wife to stay by his side, saying: ‘Don’t leave me, I’m going to die.
‘
He was taken to the Royal Free Hospital, and died shortly after midnight on February 10.
A pathologist found that Mr Gibson died due to haemorrhaging from a cut in his aorta.
Scott and Green were arrested some time later, the jury heard.
Each man blamed the other for the stabbing.
During his police interview, Green said that Scott had told him that he had ‘stabbed up’ Mr Gibson and left him for dead.
He also denied taking the victim’s phone, the jury heard.
Green told police: ‘I didn’t do it.
‘I never murdered Jason Gibson.
‘
In his police interview, Scott told police that he had been arguing with Mr Gibson because, he said, Mr Gibson would deal drugs in front of children.
He told police that he saw Green make two stabbing motions towards Mr Gibson.
Mr Altman told the jury: ‘But, hedging his bets, Scott said he didn’t think he had stabbed Gibson but if he had it was in self-defence.
‘
Scott, of (20) Buttsbury Road, Ilford, Essex, and Green, of 110 Rushmore Road, Hackney, each deny murder.
Green also denies a count of robbery.
The trial continues.
ends
