A BARRISTER in a murder trial sarcastically referred to her client as notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar as she summed up her case to a jury.
Murdoch Brown, 31, was stabbed in the leg in Buffett Way, Greenstead, Colchester, in May 2019 before he died.
The prosecution alleges Toyn Williams was the “organiser” – the man at the top of the JR county drug line who ordered an attack on Murdoch’s brother Robert over an unpaid drug debt.
The jury were told Jay Dice acted closely with Williams as “the trusted lieutenant”, instructed as the man on the ground with the drug line phone, while Kaley Hodgkinson was a runner who helped to cover up the stabbing.
The court heard Reece McHutcherson was the one to deal the fatal stab wounds to Murdoch Brown.
McHutcherson says he stabbed Murdoch in a moment of desperate self-defence after the two brothers attempted to rob him of drugs.
Elizabeth Marsh QC, for Williams, said her client’s decision not to give evidence must not be taken as an assumption of his guilt.
She said: “Members of the jury, I have no doubt you were disappointed when ‘Pablo Escobar’ Toyn Williams failed to cross the court to step into the witness box.
“If your disappointment arises in part out of all the unanswered questions and conflicting evidence presented by the prosecution, then you will not hold that decision against him.
“Because however many questions are outstanding, it is for the prosecution to answer the questions in order to prove the case.
“The defendant need prove nothing, that is the lynchpin of the law in this land.
“It is for the prosecution to prove the case and for the prosecution to prove it so you are sure.”
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She added: “This is a criminal trial – it is a criminal trial of murder. It is not a game of Cluedo, or some television detective story like Columbo where somebody cleverly answers every question.”
Williams, 29, of Winchester Road, Hale End, in East London, Dice, 23, of Mayville, Leytonstone, and McHutcherson, 20, of Pillow Way, Buckingham, deny murder.
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