A PROSECUTION barrister has told the defendant in a murder trial that it was him and him alone who was responsible for killing a 65-year-old man.

At Preston Crown Court, Andrew Ford QC put it to Nathan Williams that the injuries Stuart Newton sustained, which resulted in his death, were inflicted by Williams and nobody else.

Cross-examining the 31-year-old, who stands accused of killing Mr Newton in Oswaldtwistle in February 2020, Mr Ford said: “When he was down did you kick him full force in the face like a football?”

Williams responded: “I never kicked him, you have no evidence of that, you have five people saying I punched him once.”

Mr Ford then asked the defendant: “When you issued that kick you broke his nose and his upper jaw bone. High on cocaine and vodka you stamped on his head not knowing the power of your own feet because you were out of the game on vodka and cocaine.

“That’s why blood is on your shoes, that’s why you wrote the confession to Smith in a text message.”

Williams said: “No, not at all. Lies. It’s lies.”

Mr Ford added: “And you are responsible for this aren’t you, you and nobody else?”

Williams, of Mount Pleasant Street, Oswaldtwistle, is charged with murdering Mr Newton, following an altercation at Mr Newton’s daughter’s house in Worsley Court.

Yesterday, Williams took to the stand and denied kicking and stamping on Mr Newton’s head, but admitted to the jury that he had landed ‘an uppercut’ on the grandfather in self defence, when Mr Newton had ‘swung punches at him’ while he was walking away from the property.

Williams’ defence barrister asked his client a number of questions about the events of that evening, in which Mr Newton had accused Williams of not deserving to have children.

Williams said: “Stuart said that he’d brought my kids up. He said ‘I brought your kids up, you don’t deserve kids you’re a scumbag.”

Defending, Paul Storrie asked him: “And you thought he’d mistaken you for Carl (Mr Newton's daughter's partner), and what was your reaction to that?”

Williams replied: “I just brushed it off and ignored it at first, but he carried on, I told him he was wrong but he kept on. It changed the atmosphere”

Williams told the court that he left the house to remove himself from the situation and started walking towards friend, Paul Berry’s house, but stopped and turned around when he felt someone behind him, who started throwing punches at him.

Williams said he ‘rolled under the punches and uppercut him’, but didn’t realise it was Mr Newton until he landed on the floor.

The jury heard how after punching Mr Newton, he returned to Worsley Court to tell Mr Newton’s daughter Abigail what had happened.

Along with Abigail, and Abigail’s partner, Carl McMahon, Williams went to drag Mr Newton back into the house, before Williams left the scene.

He told the jury that when he left and went to Mr Berry’s house, there was blood coming out of Mr Newton’s mouth and that he’d been put in the recovery position.

However, when he returned to the house a short time later, Williams said the scene was ‘like a blood bath’, with Mr Newton lying on Carl McMahon’s chest.

An ambulance was called, and rather than telling paramedics about the punch, they were told by Abigail that Mr Newton had fallen down some stairs.

Williams was asked how he thought Mr Newton had come to be in that worsened condition, considering he had only punched him once, to which he told the jury he ‘didn’t know as he wasn’t there at the time, he was at Mr Berry’s house’.

Williams was arrested the following day.

Cross-examining Williams, Mr Ford said: “Are you buying into Abigail’s false story to save yourself? Are you saying Carl McMahon did this?”

Williams said: “No, all I’m saying is when I left he was bleeding from the mouth, and when I came back it was a blood bath.”

Mr Ford continued: “So he was declining, Stuart’s condition was declining? Why if you only punched him once, did you not just say that.”

Williams added: “Because Abi and Carl didn’t want to tell the police that. They lied.

“I didn’t tell the paramedics that he’d fallen, I told Abi and Carl I’d punched him, but they decided to say he’d fallen.

“They told the paramedics he had fallen, so the paramedics didn’t know how to treat him.

“Maybe if they’d told the paramedics the right information they could have treated him quicker.”

Williams denies murder. (Proceeding)