A teenager on trial accused of murdering a man in a Skipton park today told a jury he began dealing drugs in London after a man threatened to stab him if he didn’t sell heroin and crack cocaine on the streets.

Brooklyn Bell, 19, of Parkwood Rise, Keighley, denies murdering Simon McMinn in Aireville Park on July 28 last year.

Beginning his evidence at Bradford Crown Court, he told how he was born in Huddersfield and moved to Devon when he was a young boy.

He said he was bullied at school in Brixham and moved with his mother to Spain before returning to the United Kingdom when he was 15.

He said he arrived back in the country in August, 2019, and was taken to a crack den on a council estate in Hackney. He was then told to sell drugs by a man he didn’t know who had turned up to meet him and his companion at Gatwick Airport.

Bell said he was intimidated by the dealer into selling heroin and crack cocaine in Hackney and Bournemouth.

“He told me I had to. If I didn’t, he’ll shank me up,” meaning stab him, he told the jury.

He said he was given a phone and a knife by the dealer who paid him up to £50 a week and gave him cigarettes.

Bell said he stabbed a man aged 54 three times in Bournemouth in August, 2019, when he was very angry. The jury has been told that he has pleaded guilty to an offence of wounding with intent in relation to that incident.

He said he returned to Spain after that and was arrested at Manchester Airport in relation to the Bournemouth stabbing when he came back to the UK in May last year.

He made no comment when questioned by the police and was given bail.

The court has heard from prosecutor John Elvidge QC that Mr McMinn, 44, was stabbed three times, once in the shoulder and twice in the back, causing “catastrophic injuries.”

Paramedics did their best to save him but he was pronounced dead at Airedale Hospital.

The jury was told that Bell travelled to Skipton from Keighley by train to sell drugs. CCTV footage shown in court showed him walking from Skipton Railway Station to Aireville Park. He was then seen again running from the park just before 8pm.

The trial continues.