The lawyer for a teenager accused of double murder urged a jury to acquit him claiming it would be a "miscarriage of justice" to find him guilty.

Anesta Weeks QC said 19-year-old Darronte Dill is an innocent man who was pressurised into taking the rap for the true culprit.

Dill is the only person on trial over the murders of Maxwell Brangman and Frederick Dill, homeless men who were stabbed and stoned to death as they slept in a hut in St David's. However, the prosecution acknowledges it's likely there was more than one culprit.

Urging the jury to clear Dill during her closing speech at the Supreme Court yesterday, Ms Weeks said: "It would be a terrible shame that no one would be convicted for this terrible crime in your community. That's true. But what's worse? We say a wrongful conviction and a miscarriage of justice. We say that would be much worse. You are on safe ground to reject the Crown's case."

Prosecutors say Dill is guilty of the crime as he admitted to it after his arrest, when undercover detectives secretly taped a conversation he had with fellow suspect Roger Lightbourne Sr in the Police cells. Dill gave a lengthy account of how the crime was committed.

He went on to make the same admissions in a formal Police interview after that sting operation.

Prosecutor Rory Field told the jury on Tuesday that the fact Mr. Brangman's blood was later found on Dill's cell phone is "extremely serious evidence against Mr. Dill." The accused told the Police he'd used his phone to video Mr. Brangman's body burning after he set the hut on fire.

Mr. Field also pointed out that details that Dill gave the Police such as stabbing Mr. Gilbert 12 times and using a history book to set fire to Mr. Brangman's body match the crime scene.

However, when Dill gave evidence last week, he told the jury Mr. Lightbourne Sr. confessed to him the day after the murders that he was the culprit. Dill claimed he later made "false" admissions to the Police because Mr. Lightbourne Sr. told him to take the rap, and he was scared of him.

He explained the DNA on his phone by saying he'd loaned it to Mr. Lightbourne Sr. at the time of the murders. Dill usually lives with his grandmother in Fentons Drive, Pembroke, but was staying at the Lightbourne residence in St. David's at the time. The Police seized his cell phone from Mr. Lightbourne's bedroom.

Ms Weeks told the jury that Dill's explanation to Mr. Lightbourne Sr. in the cells of how the crime was carried out was actually him repeating Mr. Lightbourne's confession back to him. She claimed he was in fear of his life at the time due to Mr. Lightbourne Sr. having a criminal past as does his son, Roger Jr.

"You and I would have run to a Police officer. You and I would have gone home to grandmother. We're talking about him and the position he's in," she said. "Forgive me, this is a common expression 'if you lie with dogs you will come up with fleas'. He got too close to the Lightbournes. That was his mistake. It's a mistake he will live with forever."

She criticised the Police for setting up the sting operation at Mr. Lightbourne Sr.'s behest late at night, before Dill participated in any formal Police interview. She also complained that the tape of the conversation was of poor quality, and suggested the jury should not rely on it.

Urging them to clear his name, she said: "It's not a slap in the face for the men that died. It's not a slap in the face for the families that live to say 'so nobody's gone down for my dad's murder.' It will be because you stood up to justice. It will be because you looked carefully at the evidence."

Chief Justice Richard Ground is expected to send the jury out to consider a verdict today.