A homeless man was attacked and then stabbed to death in an unprovoked assault after being accused of being abusive to his girlfriend, a Supreme Court jury heard yesterday.

George Kelly died after Gernell Leroy Darrell stabbed him once in the chest at the taxi rank on Church Street, Hamilton, on May 31 last year, Director of Public Prosecutions Khamisi Tokunbo told the jury.

It followed an incident minutes earlier in which Darrell, 23, allegedly slapped Mr. Kelly near the public toilets opposite Victoria Park, accusing him of having an abusive relationship with his girlfriend, resulting in the dead man lashing out and stabbing the accused once in the chest with a screwdriver.

Mr. Tokunbo said Darrell and another man later pursued Mr. Kelly, 42, to the taxi rank where Darrell stabbed him with a knife.

Mr. Kelly's body was found the following morning in the car park at the Silver Spoon restaurant on Victoria Street clasping the screwdriver, although the knife used to murder him has not been recovered. “The Crown says that this case is about how this defendant without any provocation whatsoever deliberately harassed, attacked and pursued a homeless man, eventually delivering a fatal stab wound to this man's chest,” said Mr. Tokunbo.

Darrell, of Swan Bay Hill, Pembroke, pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr. Kelly, before Assistant Justice Charles-Etta Simmons. Darrell was with a young woman at the bus terminal on the evening of May 31 when he went to use the public toilets near Victoria Park and saw Mr. Kelly.

Darrell “began harassing him and challenging him about his relationship with the deceased's (Mr. Kelly's) girlfriend and what the defendant thought was an abusive relationship and began to slap him at least three times and the deceased is running and saying ‘I haven't done anything to you, I haven't done anything to her',” said Mr. Tokunbo.

After being pursued and slapped a few more times, Mr. Kelly, who had a Kentucky Fried Chicken meal in a bag, pulled out a screwdriver and stabbed Darrell once in the chest, he continued.

Darrell then stopped and went back to see the young lady.

“The defendant never retaliated at that time to the stabbing from the deceased with the screwdriver,” Mr. Tokunbo said.

Within a few seconds, one of Darrell's friends arrived on a bike and asked what had happened and approached Mr. Kelly at Victoria Park, asking him why he had stabbed his mate.

Mr. Kelly then ran “frantically” towards the taxi rank at Church Street and asked a taxi driver to call the Police, but the driver told him the station was just two blocks away.

Mr. Tokunbo said the man on the bike appeared and again confronted Mr. Kelly about the stabbing.

“Out of the blue, around the corner, comes none other than the defendant. He says nothing, but comes up closer and two witnesses will say what they observed. One says he ‘jooked' him.

“The taxi driver says he had on a white top and was bleeding. He comes around the corner, and according to the taxi driver he says nothing and has his hand behind as though positioning himself,” said Mr. Tokunbo.

“The taxi driver doesn't see the knife, the other person sees the knife. The taxi driver sees him lash out.”

Mr. Kelly then ran off down Cedar Avenue passing a young couple and was almost knocked down by a taxi as he ran across Victoria Avenue, then jumped over the wall at the Silver Spoon.

The woman he ran past was so concerned she went after him but could not find him. Immediately afterwards, the man on the bike and Darrell came looking for Mr. Kelly, said Mr. Tokunbo.

Darrell was taken to hospital for his wounds and Mr. Kelly was found in the Silver Spoon car park the next morning clutching the screwdriver, which DNA tests showed contained traces of Darrell's blood and clothing fibres consistent with the shirt the defendant was wearing.

Mr. Kelly had a knapsack containing items including a knife and fishing gear, but this knife could not have caused the fatal wound, nor could the dead man have stabbed himself, said Mr. Tokunbo. “The importance of that is that there had to be another knife. The Crown's case is there was another knife the defendant had. We don't have that knife.”

Mr. Tokunbo said the defence would rely on a claim that Darrell picked up the dead man's knife on the street and doesn't know where it is now. The jury would need to use their common sense to determine how plausible that was.

Police enquiries led them to question Darrell, who was not yet a suspect, in King Edward VII Memorial Hospital about how he received his injuries.

Darrell said he had been attacked by a man he had never seen before and had not tried to defend himself.

“The story changed, and there's a reason for that. He becomes a suspect and gives a different version,” Mr. Tokunbo explained.

Under cross-examination from defence lawyer Mark Pettingill, Scenes of Crime officer Det. Con. Jewel Hayward said no fingerprints were found on the dead man's knife or on three miniature rum bottles found at the scene, although he did not mention this in his statement. Det. Con. Hayward said he took pictures of injuries sustained by a Wayne Christopher after he was arrested.

His pictures of the dead man at the scene only showed a small discolouration on Mr. Kelly's shirt which could have been blood, he said.

Det. Con. Hayward explained he was instructed by senior officers to take pictures of the bus station, but not of the taxi rank where the fatal stabbing allegedly took place.

And he said these areas were not sealed off and as he walked around the various parts of the crime scene, he didn't see any little trails of blood.

Zakia Simmons, who met Darrell at the bus station, said she witnessed a “street guy” stab Darrell near Victoria Park after the accused claimed the dead man had been hitting a girl.

She said she saw an object dropped by Mr. Kelly after he stabbed Darrell, but she was not sure what it was. As Darrell went after the man towards the taxi rank, she did see anything in his hand and did not see any taxis at the rank.

Shawne Bascome testified that he saw Darrell, whom he knew only as “Tubs”, stabbing Mr. Kelly following an argument at the taxi rank.

He said he saw Darrell “pull a knife, and make an action towards the guy's chest” after which Mr. Kelly ran off.

Mr. Bascome admitted he had drunk three measures of a drink which had four shots of liquor and three beers in Casey's Cocktail Lounge before witnessing the attack. He could not remember the name of a girl whose house he visited immediately before the attack, not could he remember what the dead man was wearing.

But under questioning he said he remembered the weapon carried by Mr. Kelly was an 11-inch butcher's knife.

The trial continues today.