Teenager accused of stabbing boy in street after 'Snapchat argument'

A teenager has gone on trial accused of chasing and stabbing a boy in the street following an argument on the messaging app Snapchat. Leo Williams is alleged to have slashed and stabbed his 16-year-old victim leaving the boy with five wounds to his back and arm.

Williams - also known as Leo Taylor - denies attacking the victim, saying he was not the balaclava-wearing male who inflicted the injuries on a residential Swansea street. The 18-year-old defendant is on trial at Swansea Crown Court accused of possession of a bladed article and inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent, charges he denies.

Opening the case for the prosecution, barrister Georgina Donohue described the case as "a very sad" one and said the background to the stabbing was a disagreement between groups of young men on Snapchat. She said it was the prosecution case that whatever the nature of that disagreement the defendant "took it to the extreme" by stabbing his victim, a 16-year-old boy who was "in the wrong place at the wrong time". The barrister said the victim, who cannot be named because of his age, was taken to Morriston Hospital following the attack on a street in the Plasmarl area of the city where medics cleaned and sealed five wounds, two of which were on his back and three on his upper left arm. She said the wounds were between 1cm and 3cm in length, and one of the back wounds was two-and-a-half centimetres deep.

The barrister said when police identified Williams as a suspect he initially claimed he had been in his mother's house on the night in question and had been nowhere the scene but later changed his account and said he had been present but had remained sat in the back of a friend's car throughout the incident. She said it was the prosecution case that Williams was the male seen wearing a grey Nike top, black jogging bottoms, and ski mask who chased the victim and inflicted the wounds. You can sign up to our regular Crime and Punishment newsletter here

The first person to give evidence was the victim - his evidence was in the form of a video-taped interview he gave to police. In his interview the teenager said he and a group of friends spent the night of November 18 last year at a pub in Plasmarl before being thrown out by the landlord. He said a little while later the group was outside Milly's Mini-Market on Mysydd Road when he saw a blue Ford Fiesta which "tried to run me over". The victim said the group made its way through the nearby tunnel down to Neath Road where he encountered the Fiesta again coming from the direction of Hafod. He said as the car drove along the dual carriageway outside the football stadium he heard somebody in the vehicle shouting "Do you know who I am? I'm Leo Taylor!"

The teenager said the Fiesta stopped near the Coopers Arm pub on Neath Road and some of his group ran up it but he could not hear what was being said. The victim said he then heard one of his group shout "He's got a blade - run!" and everyone ran off. The teenager said he and some of the group run up Cwm Level Road and onto Millbrook Street where they hid behind a parked car. He said the Fiesta then pulled up and "the boys jumped out" - he said he was chased back down Millbrook Street by a male wearing a balaclava who was "slashing" at him with a knife. Asked by the interviewing officer what he was thinking at that moment the teenager said "I thought I was going to die". The victim said at the bottom of the street he turned around to face the person chasing him and said: "Mate, please don't stab me. I haven't done anything". He said the male then stabbed him in the arm before running back to the car.

In the interview the teenager said the man who stabbed him was wearing a grey Nike zip-up top and a balaclava, and the only part of his face he could see were his eyes. He said the male was around 5ft 11in tall and of a skinny build, and did not recognise him. He also said he only learned that some of his group had previously been involved in an "exchange of words" with other males on Snapchat after the stabbing incident.

In his cross examination by barrister David Leathley for Williams, the victim said he was "70 per cent" sure that the male who stabbed him had been wearing a grey Nike top, and he confirmed the only part of his face he could see where his eyes. He said he was not able to determine the male's race or ethnicity. He also confirmed that prior to the night he had never heard the names Leo Williams or Leo Taylor, and he did not know the man in the dock.

The trial also heard evidence from a witness who had been walking on Neath Road opposite the football stadium at around 12.30am when he saw what appeared to be people in a car "trying to rile up" a group of teenagers on foot. He said words were exchanged and then the car would drive off from the group and stop a little further down the street where it would wait for the teenagers to catch up before the behaviour was repeated. He said he could not hear what was being said but there was swearing coming both sides.

The jury also heard from a woman living on Neath Road who said she looked out of her bedroom window when she heard a disturbance in the street on the night in question. She said she heard someone shouting a racial slur towards males in a car and said he saw a black or mixed race male running from the vehicle carrying "something shiny" in his hand which she thought may have been a gun or a knife. The witness told the jury she initially thought the disturbance would lead to parked cars being damaged but when she saw the male "legging it" with a weapon she knew there was going to be a fight and someone would be injured or killed, and at that point she called 999.

Leo Williams, of Pen-yr-Allt, Resolven, Neath Valley, denies possession of a bladed article, inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent, and a lesser alternative charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm. The trial - which is expected to last three to four days - continues.

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