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Keith Brown Murder Trial - Latest

From the Simon Darby blog here .

On to a more serious matter, that being day six of the trial of the man accused of murdering Keith Brown at Stafford Crown Court. Today the proceedings were watched by several British National Party officials including two sitting councillors. The session didn’t start until 11:30am possibly owing to the ill health Mr Anthony Barker QC who did not attend. Also at one point the judge had to warn two young, Muslim men to show respect for the court and that he would not tolerate any disturbances or misbehaviour in the public gallery.

During the cross-examination of the accused, Habib Khan, the court heard that he was not born in England but in fact came to England from Pakistan in 1976. He got married in 1980 and had six children. In the 1980’s he went back to Pakistan for one year and then returned to Pakistan for a further four years from 1994 to 1998. In 1990 he bought a house in the Normacott area of the city. On returning back to Britain he bought a kebab shop in Newcastle-under-Lyme, a few years later he bought Kebabworld in the Longton area of Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr Khan stated that he went running out this house when he saw his son being held in a head lock by Keith Brown but did not see his other son fighting with Keith’s son Ashley. He told the court he tapped Mr Brown on his shoulder and told him to let go of his son, “I have a Knife” he said.

He stated that Mr Brown saw him and that he had the knife in his right hand, “I put the knife into Mr Brown’s back and he fell over me falling backwards on top of me to the ground. I pulled a knife out of his back and ran to my drive and handed the knife to someone, I do not remember who. I have never seen so much blood in all of my life. I then went to my car and took out a wheel brace and covered in blood onto the wheel brace so I could tell the police I had done it with a wheel brace. I did not intend to mislead the police. I did not hit anybody with a wheel brace. I dipped the wheel brace in Mr Brown’s blood.”

Mr Khan was then asked, “what did you do with that wheel brace that you had got in your hand.” Mr Khan replied, “nothing”. Mr Khan insisted he tried to call his son away from Ashley who was under Keith Brown’s four-wheel-drive vehicle. It was suggested that this wheel brace had been used to hit Ashley because police forensics found traces of both Keith Brown’s and his son’s blood on the weapon. It was pointed out that Keith Brown was lying motionless on the ground at the front of this four-wheel-drive vehicle on the footpath while all of this was going on. Mr Khan was seen then at the side of the 4 x 4 beckoning both of his sons to come to him.

During the incident and in the aftermath at no time were either the police or the ambulance service called by the accused. Then at about 4:20pm Mr Khan interrupted his cross-examination to ask the judge if he could go to the mosque. The judge considered this request but denied it as it was coming to the end of the day’s proceedings. Nevertheless the trial was adjourned at this point until 1030 tomorrow morning and the jury was this dismissed for the day.

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