8:10am Tuesday 16th March 2010
POLICE found £500 in a car after a teenager was stabbed to death on Hartlebury Common, a defence barrister told a murder trial jury yesterday.
Brothers Shane and Fred Price junior left the cash behind the Land Rover seat because they feared losing it during an attack on another family, claimed Anthony Barker QC.
He alleged that Shane Price was carrying a knife and a baton and his mother Eileen Price stabbed Tracy Carpenter during the fight on February 13 last year.
The Price and Carpenter families had met by agreement to sort out problems between Shane Price and Joe Carpenter, Worcester Crown Court heard.
But during the violence at Wilden Top car park, Joe Carpenter stabbed 19-year-old Shane to death.
The prosecution claim the Prices went to the common unarmed, while the Carpenters took a knife and two machetes.
Joe Carpenter, also 19, of Park Crescent, Stourport, pleaded guilty to murder and wounding Eileen Price before the trial of his parents began.
Car dealer Paul Carpenter, 55, and Tracy Carpenter, 46, both of Broach Road, Stourport, deny murder and wounding.
Mr Barker, for the wife, explained her case as he was cross-examining Fred Price junior.
The 22-year-old accepted that people from the travelling fraternity - which his family belonged to - did not like to "grass" on people to the police.
He agreed that in a 999 call from the common he said he did not know who had carried out the fatal attack.
But his mother Eileen Price then told police it was Joe Carpenter.
Refering to the money, Mr Barker said: "You took it out because you knew your family were going to attack the Carpenters."
The QC claimed Fred Price senior took some weapons away from the scene in his Land Rover.
Earlier, Fred Price junior told how he and Shane were close but his brother was "very private". He did not know what kind of trouble existed between him and Joe Carpenter.
He claimed Paul Carpenter produced a machete or log cutter at the start of the violence and waved it at his father, Fred Price senior.
He also saw Joe Carpenter chasing Shane into bushes and landing blows he thought at first were punches, then realised was a knife attack.
The witness described how Tracy Carpenter ran towards his mother, grabbed her hair and pulled her to the ground.
He claimed that as his mother was held down, Joe Carpenter ran over and stabbed her in the chest.
Andrew O'Byrne QC, for Paul Carpenter, alleged Shane Price produced a baton and Fred Price junior armed himself with an iron bar.
Mr Price said it was "a load of rubbish" and added: "I didn't know it was going to be serious. You don't have to fall out with people that badly. You can talk things over."
The trial continues.
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