Teen accused of murder 'played football because he had done nothing wrong', trial hears

One teenager has already admitted killing 26-year-old Peter Cairns on the Silkin Way footpath near Stonebridge Close, Telford, on June 11, 2021.

Three other teens, none of whom can be identified for legal reasons, are on trial for murder and causing assault occasioning actual bodily harm to Kaine Bushell on the same day. They deny all the charges.

Gurdeep Garcha QC, defending one of the accused, said the teen who has admitted the charge will be punished for it.

"The prosecution have their conviction for murder but they want more," he said.

"They say everybody should carry the can - you have to consider whether that feels right."

Mr Garcha said that after the crime was committed the killer had dumped his clothes near the Six Bells pub and left the scene.

"At 11.42pm he was in a car on Queensway that was stopped by the police. The killer was found in the back of the car, hiding under some cushions."

In contrast he said the boy he represented, who was two months past his 15th birthday, had been pictured with a football, which is what was important to him on that day.

"Don't let the prosecution demonise these young men. They are normal young boys," he told the court, adding that his client's activity was "as far from gang activity as it is possible to be."

He added that at 8.05pm, some 45 minutes after he had allegedly been involved in Mr Cairns' murder, he was pictured with a ball in hand, with no sign of being worried.

"You would have to have ice in your veins to take part in a murder, then take part in a kickabout," Mr Garcha added. "Or you weren't involved in it."

He said the young man had never been in trouble with the police and had no previous convictions.

In interviews, he had lied when he had been struggling with the implications for his family and his best friend, who had struck the fatal blow with a knife to Mr Cairns. But in following interviews he had been open and had given evidence that was corroborated as true.

Mr Garcha claimed that if the young man he represented had been mature he might have walked away.

"Through the lens of a 15-year-old, without foresight, that's a very different question."

His client also didn't "run to the hills" but stayed in Woodside, chilling with his mates and playing football because he had "done nothing wrong", Mr Garcha said.

"You cannot convict someone because of association, we don't have guilt by association," he added.

While his best friend had "lost the plot" and had been shouting "ah, ah, ah as he was laying into Peter", Mr Garcha invited jurors not to make him pay for his friend's wrongdoing.

The prosecution had no evidence linking him to gang activity, or loyalty, he said.

"It is much more likely that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Mr Garcha.

The boy had admitted handling a hammer, but only to throwing it away. And Mr Garcha said it had not been used in the assault. It was also found some distance from a discarded Samurai sword and a wheelbrace which have been linked to the injuries on the two victims.

"Football boy had no idea of what was in the plan," he said.

The trial continues.