The boyfriend of a 17 – year-old girl who was stabbed to death in London has told a court he caught her as she collapsed.
Jodie Chesney was stabbed in the back while she was with friends in a park in Harold Hill, east London, on 1 March.
Her boyfriend Eddie Coyle, 18, told the Old Bailey there was “a lot of blood” and added: “I managed to catch her, put her on the floor.”
Manuel Petrovic, 20, Svenson Ong-a-Kwie, 19, both from Romford, and two boys, aged 16 and 17, deny murder.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, Mr Coyle said the group of friends had just started smoking cannabis when Jodie was attacked.
“She was in shock at first. She did not know what had happened,” he said.
“She started screaming continuously, very loud, about two minutes straight.”
Mr Coyle added: “After she stopped screaming she began to faint. At this time she was falling off the bench.
“The guys ran off. I did not really see – I was trying to catch Jodie at the time.
“I managed to catch her, put her
“She was wearing a thick jacket so we did not know how bad the wound was at first, but there was a lot of blood. “
Describing Jodie as a “great, funny, silly and sensible” person, Mr Coyle told jurors she had been laughing “one second” before she was attacked.
It has been alleged that Mr Petrovic and Mr Ong -a-Kwie were in business selling drugs together, while the 16 -year-old defendant acted as a “runner” for Mr Petrovic and the 17 – year-old was helping Mr Ong-a-Kwie sell drugs that day.
Cross-examining, Sarah Forshaw QC, for Mr Petrovic, asked if the group were expecting another delivery of cannabis, after one of them had got some earlier. Mr Coyle said they were not.
The trial continues.
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