A MAN who admitted beating up Jamie Dack told a court he intended to let him go, but was warned it was "too risky" and he would be "grassed up" to the police.
Lee Nicholls claims that he was told not to let the 22-year-old leave a squat the day after the attack because Jamie would raise the alarm about what had happened to him.
Nicholls was giving evidence for a second day at Winchester Crown Court in his own defence.
Describing what happened in the morning of Good Friday, Nicholls said he received a text message from one if his co accused, Donna Chalk, telling him to return to the property in Bevois Mews because they were "going to have to do it again".
Nicholls explained to jurors that it referred to beating Jamie up, as had happened the previous evening.
He told how he went to the flat, carrying trousers, a jumper and shoes as he was expecting to go with Chalk, Ryan Woodmansey and Andrew Dwyer-Skeats to a rave in Bournemouth that night, and saw Jamie sat on the floor in the lounge.
He said:" he was battered and bruised but more with it, he didn't seem dazed and confused.
He was just sat in the lounge against the wall. "I asked him about what Donna was saying about going to the police.
He said that he wasn't going, he swore to me that he wouldn't do it." Nicholls told the court how at that point he told co defendants Andrew Dwyer-Skeats and Ryan Woodmansey to let Jamie go, but he was told by them:" We can't, it's too risky, he will grass up and you can't go to the rave".
Nicholls described how he took string off a blind and used it to tie up Jamie, putting his feet together and hands behind his back. Jamie had a sock stuffed in his mouth by Dwyer-Skeats before tape was stuck over it by Woodmansey, Nicholls said.
The gang left him there while they went out that morning to sell his laptop in Southampton, the court heard.
Nicholls, 28, of Southampton Street, Dwyer-Skeats, 26 and Chalk, 22, both of Bevois Mews and Woodmansey, 32, of no fixed address, deny murder. All four admit perverting the course of justice.
Proceeding.
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