A RUNNER denies murdering the dealer he sold cannabis for after their relationship turned sour over the supply of bogus drug-infused sweets.

Phoenix Lee, 20, told a jury at Chelmsford Crown Court he sold cannabis for 22-year-old stab victim Alinjavwa Siwale.

He said the relationship between the pair had soured after he connected Mr Siwale with a supplier of cannabis-infused sweets.

“When we got them, they were in these packets,” said Lee.

“People can buy these packets and fill them up with sweets, just normal sweets you could buy at Asda, so obviously that’s what they’d done.

“We bought around 60 packets.

"The price was about £600 and all of them turned out to be normal sweets.

“So we didn’t realise until we started distributing them to people, and that was basically where it started getting kind of rocky.

“I didn’t have the money to reimburse them for it.

“When I realised Jav started to have feelings over it was when he posted the song about me.”

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The court heard Mr Siwale, a rapper who went by the stage name Swizzino or Mr Essex, had penned lyrics threatening Lee, who went by the street name Repo.

Lee said a “paranoid” Mr Siwale had wrongly suspected him of snitching to the police.

Giles Cockings QC, defending, asked: “What was your reaction to hearing these lyrics, did you find it insulting, were you wound up by it?”

Lee said: “I didn’t like it, but it’s nothing really.

“It was kind of a bit of a joke, people laughed at it because it wasn’t true.”

Lee and co-accused Sheldon McKay, 25, entered Mr Siwale’s home, in Affleck Road, Colchester, with force shortly after midnight on December 11.

The prosecution say Lee was armed with a long combat knife later found at the scene.

It is alleged Lee and McKay launched an attack on Mr Siwale, delivering slash wounds to his back and front before a fatal stab wound penetrated his lung. Lee denies he wielded a knife at any point.

The court heard in the hours before the confrontation, Lee visited a hotel with his girlfriend.

Lee said he was intermittently stepping out of the hotel to deal cannabis.

He said he later left the hotel to meet McKay, with the pair deciding to head to Mr Siwale’s house.

He said: “Whenever I go to their house, I just walk in, it’s not that big of a deal.”

Lee said when the pair arrived at the front door, they heard music blaring.

He said McKay knocked, before Mr Siwale shouted to Lee from a top floor window: "F*** off, you tramp".

Lee said he then kicked down Mr Siwale’s front door out of anger.

“I felt he was trying to hone in on my own personal issue,” he said.

Lee said he moved towards the stairs, where he claims he met the oncoming Mr Siwale and his brother Suwi.

He said: “As he came down the stairs we made eye contact, I saw his arm slightly raised so I put my hands up to protect my face.”

Lee said he was struck in the face with the long combat knife by Mr Siwale, before the blade was dropped.

Lee told the jury McKay picked the knife up off the floor and used it to protect Lee and himself, fighting with Mr Siwale first in the hallway and then in the kitchen.

He said he turned around and ran to the front door.

Lee said he was barged into the door by Suwi, who he claimed wielded a knife.

Lee said McKay came out of the kitchen and shouted at Suwi to let Lee go, before striking Suwi.

Lee and McKay, both of no fixed address, deny murder and causing grievous bodily harm.