The defence for a woman on trial for the murder of 16-year-old Shijuan Mungal has accused a witness for the Crown of “embellishing” his story to protect his friend.

Appearing in the Supreme Court, Ja-Ja DeSilva, 17, gave his account of the events of September 8, 2014, that led to the alleged beating of Mr Mungal, his close friend and godbrother.

Kiahna Trott-Edwards, 32, has been charged with inflicting fatal blows on the young man with a baseball bat, including fracturing his skull, after a confrontation on a bus in which she rebuked Mr Mungal for bad language.

The witness yesterday described how, at the end of their first day back at school, the boys were on their way to Cherry Lane, Warwick, where Mr DeSilva, who had turned 17 that day, was to meet with his father.

The jury has heard that Ms Trott-Edwards, who was on the same bus with her daughter, took exception to loud swearing from a group of boys at the back of the bus.

She and Mr Mungal later encountered one another on Cherry Lane, where Ms Trott-Edwards also resided.

According to the prosecution, she struck him on the arm before delivering a blow to the back of his head that fractured Mr Mungal’s skull.

Mr DeSilva said he went outside after two minutes in his father’s apartment to find Ms Trott-Edwards sitting on a wall in the yard and talking on her phone.

Questioned by prosecutor Victoria Greening, he said that as the two headed out, Ms Trott-Edwards told his friend to get out of her yard, speaking in a “commanding” tone. “He said, ‘I’m getting out of your yard now’. He was irritated from earlier,” Mr DeSilva said, adding that the woman had said “this boy don’t know me” as they left.

Mr DeSilva said that Ms Trott-Edwards, who was known to him from his regular visits to his father, then approached holding a baseball bat in one hand and her phone in the other.

The jury heard Mr Mungal was struck on the arm when the woman got about an arm’s length from him. Pointing behind his left ear, Mr DeSilva said she then struck him on the back of the head.

Mr Mungal initially showed surprise. For the second blow, Ms Trott-Edwards “swung the bat hard”, he said, adding: “I heard that it was a hard hit.”

As the two left, Mr Mungal was “dizzy and dazed”, stumbling twice. The two returned to Hamilton by bus, with Mr Mungal quiet and looking out of the window during the ride.

At the bus terminal, Mr DeSilva noticed blood coming from his friend’s left ear. Both of their mothers arrived to take the boy to the hospital, where he died from head trauma three days later.

Mr DeSilva said he had known Ms Trott-Edwards for two or three years, describing her as “quite cool” — but “kind of rude” on the day of the incident.

He denied having seen his friend become physically aggressive towards the woman.

However, his account of the final confrontation was described as “complete nonsense” by defence lawyer Courtenay Griffiths.

Mr DeSilva agreed that his friend could get angry if he felt disrespected or embarrassed in public.

The jury heard that Mr Mungal had been suspended twice from his school for swearing at teachers, but Mr DeSilva told the defence he did not recall his friend having to be held down by a school security guard.

Mr Griffiths pointed to discrepancies between Mr DeSilva’s testimony from the witness box, and his statements in an interview with Police two days after the incident.

The defence asked if he recalled his friend saying “shut the f*** up, turn around and sit down” to Ms Trott-Edwards during the bus journey, which Mr DeSilva said he could not remember.

He recalled the woman asking him to calm his friend down, and agreed that he had been concerned about the two encountering one another on Cherry Lane.

Mr Griffiths suggested they had run into one another at the gate leading into the housing area, with the accused telling Mr Mungal: “You have some nerve coming in my yard after disrespecting me the way you did.”

The witness said he could not remember that, nor hearing his friend reply: “Nobody didn’t f***ing disrespect you.”

Mr Griffiths suggested that Mr Mungal had been talking offensively below his breath when he came back out of his father’s apartment.

“I suggest Shijuan was behaving as if he didn’t want to leave — as if he wanted to stand up to Kiahna,” Mr Griffiths continued, to which the witness said: “No.”

Mr Griffiths disputed the witness’s assertion that his friend had been struck from behind, and that Ms Trott-Edwards had wielded that bat with her left hand.

Another witness, area resident Carolyn Rewan, told the court she had been watching television at home on the day in question when she had been alerted to “shouting, kicking up and cursing” from outside at about 4.30pm.

The trial continues today.

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