A BBC presenter accused of hitting a teenager with a large wooden pole today admitted to a jury that he had lied to police during his interview.

Midlands Today reporter Ashley Blake told Birmingham Crown Court that he was “tired, scared and in a state of shock” after being arrested following violent disorder at his bar in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, in the early hours of January 25.

The 40-year-old is accused of swinging a patio umbrella pole above his head and striking 17-year-old Greg Jones in the face at the end of an 18th birthday party at The Place 2 B.

Blake denies wounding the teenager and today told the jury he used the pole as a “bat” to fend off the bottles, ashtrays and broken-up furniture being hurled at him by a crowd of up 30 people.

The court heard that Blake initially denied having the pole during a police interview, but, after being shown CCTV footage, said he had used it to protect himself against the “missiles” being thrown.

When asked why he had lied to police, Blake, who also works on the Inside Out current affairs show, said: “I told a number of lies to the police because I was scared and I was not thinking straight and I was very confused.

“I had been up over 24 hours by this stage. I had already completed a 16-hour shift when the violence happened.

“I was thinking about all sorts of things. I was thinking about my reputation, I was thinking about what had happened, how the hell it had happened and I was scared.”

When asked by prosecutor Naomi Gilchrist why he told police he couldn’t remember holding a pole in his hands, Blake said: “I had just experienced one of the most violent things that had happened to me in my life.

“It was difficult to piece together what I had had in my hands at any one time.”

Blake denies wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and an alternative charge of unlawful wounding.

He also denies intending to pervert the course of justice by throwing the pole into a neighbouring garden centre in an attempt to conceal it from police.

The case continues