Fatal fight was about scrap metal, court told (From Worcester News)

Fatal fight was about scrap metal, court told

1:20pm Saturday 20th March 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

A CAR dealer told police that violence on Hartlebury Common – which ended with a teenager being stabbed to death – was over scrap metal, a murder trial jury was told.

Father-of-five Paul Carpenter said he believed he was going to watch his son Joe and Shane Price square up “in a fair-play fight”.

But he claimed the Price family came to the scene armed with an extendable baton and a steel bar which was four to five feet long.

He alleged that Shane ran after Joe with the baton after shouting that he was going to kill him – but he didn’t see Shane get knifed. Detectives asked Carpenter about whether a relationship between Shane and a 17-year-old girl, fostered by the defendant and his wife Tracy, had provoked the fatal fight.

In a police interview, Carpenter said: “It wasn’t over a girl being pregnant. It was over scrap, a bit of scrap metal.“Joe bought some scrap. Shane was playing his face about it. They (the Prices) kept phoning up and wanted to have a go.

“I thought it was going to be a couple of slaps, but they had other ideas. I was just amazed at what happened.”

Carpenter, aged 55, and his wife Tracy, 46, both of Park Crescent, Stourport, deny murder and wounding.

Joe Carpenter, 19, of the same address, pleaded guilty to murdering Shane Price, also 19, of Broach Road, Stourport, and wounding his mother Eileen Price before the trial began, the jury was told.

The rival families met on the common on February 13 last year after Eileen Price “goaded” Tracy Carpenter to fight, claimed her husband.

He told police he saw Joe being chased by Shane at the Wilden Top car park before being attacked himself by Fred Price junior with the steel bar. He recalled his wife and Eileen Price fighting and Fred Price junior smashing up his parked car with the bar.

Asked by detectives if Joe had knifed Eileen Price – who was stabbed in the chest – Carpenter replied: “He ain’t that sort of lad.”

He said had been married to Tracy for 25 years and they had fostered children for the local authority for 15 years.

He helped to dress his wife’s hand wound after returning home and they sat watching a James Bond film with Joe before police arrived to arrest them at 10pm. “We were all spaced out over what had happened over nothing,” he said.

Witness David Cuss told the jury that he knew Joe Carpenter had a knife he called “Betsy”.

They were on a night out in Kidderminster, when Joe had an argument with the driver of an expensive car.

When Tracy Carpenter arrived to pick up her son, Mr Cuss said Joe asked his mother if she had brought his knife with her.

The prosecution alleges that Joe Carpenter’s parents knew he carried a knife and had taken part in a joint enterprise to cause the Price family serious harm. The trial continues on Monday.