A defence lawyer urged a jury not to let the "craziness" going on in Bermuda anger them into convicting six young men accused of a mob attack.

The six are said by prosecutors to have wounded Temasgan Furbert with intent to do him grievous bodily harm on the night of February 27, 2009.

The 23-year-old victim has described how he was set upon near his family home in Hamilton Parish by a large group of men wielding weapons.

Eyewitness accounts suggest the mob comprised of up to 50 people. Mr. Furbert estimated it to be around 20 to 25 people.

While defence lawyers in the case do not dispute that the victim was brutally attacked and suffered serious injuries, they insist those accused — Detroy Smith, 24, Kyle Williams Tannock, 28, Bennett Phipps, 26, Allan Douglas, 22, Kiawan Trott, 25, and Kiwaun Gilbert, 23 were never at the scene.

They've suggested Mr. Furbert lied when he said he saw all six involved, and spent a day yesterday delivering closing speeches that picked alleged holes in his evidence.

Addressing the all-female jury during her speech on behalf of Williams Tannock, lawyer Elizabeth Christopher said: "This case is, at its heart, about 20, 30, 50, angry young men."–She referred to the movie 'Twelve Angry Men' about jurors in a murder trial who believe the accused to be guilty as they enter their deliberations. She urged the ladies of this jury, however, to go into deliberations with the opposite mindset.

"Our Country has gone crazy, so I would kind of understand if you were 12 angry men. Temasgan Furbert was brutally attacked. The mob exacted revenge. But that's where it stops, where you have to end the craziness," she urged.

"You took an oath to deliver a true verdict according to the evidence. You can't let the behaviour of those angry men make you 12 angry women."

According to prosecutor Robert Welling, a large group of young men from St. George's perpetrated the attack in revenge for an assault on a friend of theirs from Hamilton Parish involving Mr. Furbert the night before. They smashed the windows of his family home in Midland Heights before assaulting him with weapons including an electric drill and a machete. All those accused are either from St. George's or have links to the town.

Ms Christopher urged the jury to reject Mr. Furbert's evidence that he identified the accused among his attackers. She claimed that he simply named people he associates with the St. George's area, rather than people whose faces he'd really seen. She pointed out that independent eyewitnesses in the case described the mob as wearing masks.

Ms Christopher said of Mr. Furbert: "This is a man who suffered a terrifying assault and it was people from St. George's, or he at least thought so. And he filled in the blanks with people whose names he knew. I don't have to explain his behaviour, but that's what I think happened."

Lawyer Victoria Pearman, who represents Smith, said it is very easy to have a case of mistaken identity, and commented: "Very often a witness who is mistaken is very convincing."

She dismissed many aspects of the Crown's case with the remark: "It don't even make good nonsense."

And Charles Richardson, defending Douglas, said: "None of you can rely on the evidence of Temasgan Furbert and don't feel bad about that. It's not your job to bring in guilty verdicts."

The six deny assaulting Mr. Furbert with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. All of them with the exception of Smith are also accused of smashing the windows of his home before the assault. They deny that too. Douglas further denies possessing a machete and Williams Tannock denies being armed with a baseball bat.

The case continues.