Jury sent out to deliberate in Oldbury schoolboy Jahziah Coke murder trial
A jury has retired to consider its verdict in the trial of a teenager accused of stabbing to death a 13-year-old boy during a row alleged to have started over a “missing” quantity of cannabis.
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The defendant, who cannot be identified because of a court order imposed due to his age, has claimed Jahziah Coke suffered a non-deliberate chest injury at a property in Oldbury on August 29.
A month-long trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court has heard that Jahziah was found dead in the hallway of a house by paramedics responding to a 999 call, having suffered a chest injury which “almost completely cut” one of his ribs and would have required “severe” force to inflict.
Prosecutors allege the teenager, who denies murder and an alternative count of manslaughter, caused Jahziah the 15cm-deep chest wound and also inflicted two injuries to his stomach “where the knife has gone in and the other is where the point of the knife has come out”.
The defendant told the jury last month that he was left traumatised after grabbing Jahziah’s hands while being threatened with a knife, which he twisted towards the floor.
He also told jurors that he did not have the knife in his own hands and had dialled 999 to summon paramedics, only leaving the property once he believed Jahziah was dead.
Summing up the evidence before sending the jury out on Wednesday morning, High Court judge Mrs Justice Tipples instructed jurors to strive to reach unanimous verdicts.
She told the panel of eight women and four men that the law allowed verdicts which were not the verdict of all jurors to be returned in certain circumstances, but added: “Those circumstances have not arisen – put that out of your mind for the moment.”
Jurors are also considering a verdict on a co-defendant aged in his 40s, who also cannot be named. He denies assisting an offender.
