A MAN accused of stabbing to death an East Oxford drug dealer, flashed a knife at a crack cocaine user days before the murder, a court has heard.

Devon McPherson, who was 42 and lived in Divinity Road, was pronounced dead in hospital on May 18 after being stabbed at SS Mary and John Churchyard, in Cowley Road, Oxford.

Robert Lee Chin, 49, of no fixed abode, has denied murder and is facing trial at Oxford Crown Court.

Yesterday the court heard from Rikki Brackett, who said he had bought drugs from Chin – also known as Champagne – 30 or 40 times prior to McPherson’s death.

The court had already been told some customers knew Mr McPherson as Wycombe Jason, or J.

Mr Brackett said he met Chin on the corner of Ridgefield Road on May 16 to buy crack cocaine from him and the defendant seemed unhappy.

“I said what’s the matter with you and he just went ‘do you know J?’ “Then he lifted up his top and I saw a blade. He just said ‘this has his name on it’. I think he was referring to Devon.”

Richard Benson, defending, said Chin was not a drug dealer and Mr Brackett had made up the allegation because the defendant had slept with his girlfriend, Carol – which Mr Brackett denied.

The court also heard from Mr McPherson’s girlfriend, Annette Stanmore, who said Chin had boasted about killing two men over a kilo of drugs when he lived in New York.

She told the court: “He said he was arrested and put in jail for it and was on death row and appealed the case. He said he served 17 years altogether; he talked about it a lot.”

Miss Stanmore said that as soon as she heard her boyfriend had died she knew Chin was responsible. She said: “I knew deep down Champagne had killed him; I knew. They hated each other.”

But Mr Benson said she had made up a “wicked series of lies” to implicate Chin and protect another drug dealer, known as Little Man or Derek Johnson.

He said Miss Stanmore had been working as a prostitute and slept with both Champagne and Little Man – and had been pregnant with Little Man’s child when Mr McPherson died.

Miss Stanmore admitted “escorting” but said she had never slept with either of the two men.

She said: “I was not lying, I was telling the truth. I have got no reason to lie.”

The trial continues.