7:40am Saturday 14th July 2012
Two men were street-fighting “tit-for-tat” with a fence plank and a broom handle minutes before one of them was killed, a murder trial jury heard yesterday.
Jason Seed and Duane Bellamy were fighting each other with equal force in Guardhouse Avenue, Braithwaite, Keighley, on the morning of Wednesday, February 15, Leeds Crown Court was told.
Witness Tracey Firth said she saw a young man tear off a fence panel and chase an older man with it. He hit the older man three times and he put up his hand to block the blows. She described the fight as “tit-for-tat”.
Bellamy, 25, of Braithwaite Drive, Keighley, denies murdering Mr Seed with a pickaxe handle minutes later.
Mr Seed, 44, of Upper Rushton Road, Fagley, Bradford, suffered skull fractures and brain damage.
Paramedics found him unconscious and bleeding heavily from the head. He died soon after.
Bellamy admits hitting Mr Seed with the pickaxe handle. His defence is that he suffered a loss of self-control.
Miss Firth said the fight moved to Back Grant Lane.
Christopher Rook, of Guardhouse Avenue, told the court Mr Seed had been a friend for many years and had stayed at his house the night before he died.
He had taken amphetamine on the morning he was killed.
Mr Rook told how his friend went out after learning that a window had been broken in a neighbour’s house with children in it. Mr Rook said Mr Seed told him ‘I’m not having that’.
Mr Rook denied throwing the pickaxe handle into the street and encouraging Mr Seed to use it as a weapon in the fight.
Marlene Aveyard said she saw a man she knew as Jason and another man “knocking ten bells out of each other” with a plank of wood and a broomstick.
She told the jury the younger man then pulled a 6in bladed knife that she saw glinting in the sun. Jason backed off and the other man followed him.
Julie Exley said she thought the pair were play-fighting, “doing Ninja things”.
She thought the violence was all over when they both moved off down a snicket.
Paramedic Christopher Barton said he found Mr Seed lying in a pool of blood in the road.
The trial continues.
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