A 15-year-old girl accused of murder later admitted to striking the victim over the head with a metal pole, a jury was told on Tuesday (June 16).
The girl – one of six teenagers on trial accused of the murder of Spalding man Warren Free – allegedly made the admission to her own sister shortly before she handed herself in to police.
Stuart Trimmer QC, prosecuting at Lincoln Crown Court, said the accused 15-year-old was crying hysterically when her sister collected her from Pennygate in Spalding.
He alleged to the jury that the 15-year-old told her sister: “This man came at me with a pole in his hand.
“He came towards me and turned to me and said ‘Come here you bitch’.”
“He came towards me and turned to me and said ‘Come here you bitch’.”
The accused girl allegedly continued: “Jake [Edwards] punched him to the back of the head and got him to the floor. I grabbed the pole and hit him over the head four times. He grabbed my ankles and I kicked him in the face.”
Mr Trimmer alleged the girl later told “deliberate lies” about the incident and about the disposal of the metal pole. When she was interviewed by police she admitted swinging the metal pole four times but claimed on the first two occasions she struck two of her co-defendants and then missed with the third swing before making contact with the man on the fourth time.
She told police: “He got up. I kicked him in the face and ran.”
The girl is one of six teenagers accused of attacking Mr Free (42) after he confronted them in a park over the noise they were making.
The jury has heard Mr Free, whose home in Coronation Close backed onto the park, became involved in a verbal altercation with the group. His rear fence was then vandalised and he returned to his home . He collected the metal pole and went back to the park where he was allegedly attacked and struck with the weapon.
The jury heard that after the incident Mr Free went back home, cleaned himself up and smoked a cannabis joint before going to bed.
Friends called an ambulance the following day when they were unable to rouse him. He was subsequently airlifted to hospital in Nottingham where he passed away from head injuries.
Mr Trimmer said a post-mortem examination revealed that Mr Free had multiple cuts and bruises to his face and head as well as multiple bruises to his torso, upper arms and both legs. He also suffered a brain injury.
The prosecutor said: “The immediate cause of his death was the head injury. The other injuries were consistent with kicks, stamps and blunt force trauma.”
Six teenagers all deny the murder of Warren Free on August 29, 2014. Three of the defendants, including a girl, were 14 at the time while the others were a girl of 15 and a 16-year-old together with Jake Edwards (now 18), who gave his address as Mill Green Road, Pinchbeck, at an earlier hearing.
Two of the boys, who were 14 and 16 at the time, each deny a charge of perverting the course of justice relating to the metal pole which it is alleged was disposed of in a nearby waterway.
