The jury in the George Dore murder trial were today invited by the prosecution to find all three defendants guilty of the charge.

In his closing speech, Simon Kealey QC for the Crown alleged that they were all involved together and afterwards each behaved as if they knew the game was up.

‘None of them said that George Dore had attacked them and they were just defending themselves,” Mr Kealey said.

He told Bradford Crown Court it was “a sorry tale” that had ended with the tragic loss of Mr Dore’s life.

He was asleep in bed when the three heavily intoxicated defendants had turned up with weapons and goaded him on to the street.

Mr Kealey said Leslie Walker stabbed him, Angela Thornton struck him on the back and Anthony Atha lent encouragement.

Walker, 46, and Thornton, 48, both of Nightingale Street, Keighley; and Atha, 53, of West Bank Close in the town, all deny murder.

During the trial, the court heard that Mr Dore, 49, was stabbed in the chest during a confrontation outside his house in Fell Lane, Keighley, in the early hours of April 8.

Mr Kealey said the defendants went to his address unannounced with the intention of getting money from him.

He alleged they were armed with a kitchen knife and some kind of improvised bar.

They woke Mr Dore by shouting and kicking his front door. When he came out into the street to confront them he was fatally stabbed in the chest.

Walker has told the jury he stabbed Mr Dore. He said he struck out with a knife he picked up in the street while scuffling with him.

He said he did not intend to kill Mr Dore or to cause him really serious injury.

Walker told the jury that neither Atha nor Thornton had anything to do with Mr Dore’s death.

“It was no one else. No one else could have done it,” he stated.

Tomorrow the court will hear closing speeches from the three leading defence barristers.

Judge Jonathan Rose will then sum up the case before the jury retires to consider its verdicts next week.

The trial continues.