A convicted murderer is accused of battering a man to death in a Wood Farm park in what prosecutors branded a ‘prolonged, vicious and forceful’ attack.
Liam Jones, 44, is said to have tailed alleged victim Phillip ‘Phil’ Breach as he walked from his home in Bonar Road to the nearby Co-op.
This is before allegedly launching his attack on a footpath in the shadow of Foresters Tower at around 6am on November 30 last year.
Mr Breach, 59, suffered 37 separate blows, Oxford Crown Court was told on Tuesday afternoon (June 20).
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The night before the alleged killing, Jones, whose previous murder conviction involved a stabbing, was alleged to have grappled with Mr Breach at the latter’s home.
The court heard he had then been ‘paranoid’ about a ‘set-up’ when the older man’s son tried to engineer a reconciliation.
Opening the case against Jones, prosecutor Sarah Gaunt said: “The anticipated issue in this trial is not whether Phillip Breach, the deceased, was murdered but whether it was this defendant, Liam Jones, who murdered him.
“Put another way, the issue is who did it.”
The jury was told that Mr Breach and Jones were known to each other.
Both lived on the same street – Bonar Road – and one of the alleged victim’s sons was said to be an acquaintance of the defendant’s.
The night before the killing, Mr Breach’s son Tyler and his girlfriend Molly Archer returned back to the complainant’s flat at 8.55pm to find defendant Jones’ leg sticking out of Phillip Breach’s bin shed.
“They described the defendant acting in a weird manner. For example that he was slurring his words,” Ms Gaunt said.
They invited him into the father’s flat – number 59 – but Mr Breach was already in bed, ‘not pleased to see the defendant and was angry at being woken up and for being disturbed’.
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She told jurors: “A short altercation seems to have taken place between the deceased and the defendant, which resulted in the deceased being pinned up against the wall briefly by the defendant.
“The defendant said that he’d been trying to stop the deceased from attacking him and there was a suggestion that the deceased had touched the defendant’s previously injured arm and hurt him.”
Both Molly and Tyler were said to have been present during the ‘altercation’, while Mr Breach’s son Jordan could hear events on the other end of an amplified telephone call.
“At the end of the incident, the defendant speedily ran away from the deceased’s flat, it would appear, back to his home address [at] number 13 on the same road,” Ms Gaunt said.
Tyler wanted the defendant and his father to apologise one another, the jury heard. Molly went to get Jones.
“When she found him, she described the defendant as behaving in a paranoid manner and being concerned about going back to jail,” the prosecutor said.
Molly was said to have sent her boyfriend a text, telling him that Jones had ‘checked all the corners because he thinks it’s a set-up, he’s paranoid and he thinks he’s going back to jail’.
Ms Gaunt said: “She persuaded the defendant to return to the deceased flat. However, there doesn’t seem to have been an acceptable apology exchanged between them.
“The defendant is described as ‘glaring’ in something akin to anger or rage at the deceased.
“Once again, the deceased left the defendant’s flat at speed.”
Mr Breach was described as a man of habit, going to the shops in Atkyns Road every morning at around 6am.
It was claimed Jones knew this, with CCTV showing the pair near each other outside the Co-op store at around 6.15am on November 28, two days before the older man was killed.
“The prosecution’s case is that you may think – once again, it is a matter for you ultimately – that would show, that clip, if nothing else, that the defendant knew that the deceased Phillip Breach used to go to the shop every morning,” Ms Gaunt said.
At 5.43am on November 30, the morning of his death, a CCTV camera captured Mr Breach walking towards the Co-op followed by a man, who was ringed in orange on footage played to jurors on Tuesday afternoon.
They emerged from the park between Wood Farm Road onto Nuffield Road, the second man walking a few seconds behind.
He reached the Co-op in Atkyns Road at 5.59am, then walked back down Nuffield Road. He was found a short time later on a footpath in the park, a short distance from the Nuffield Road street sign.
The attack itself was not caught on camera, the jury was told.
CCTV showed the unknown man walking through a car park towards Bonar Road.
The prosecutor asked the jury to note the dark beanie hat on Mr Breach’s head and the item the unknown man appeared to be carrying, which appeared to be ‘illuminating’ an area in front of him.
Jurors heard that Jones had a previous conviction for murder and, at the time of the alleged killing last November, had been ‘let out into the community on licence and was receiving monitoring and assistance in the community’.
Explaining why the jury had been told of that previous murder conviction, of which they were given very little detail, Ms Gaunt said it was because ‘the prosecution case is that it shows the defendant had a propensity to commit murder’.
She added: “It is accepted that there are some differences between the murder that you’re looking at and the previous murder.
“There are also some similarities, which may assist you in evaluating whether this defendant or another is responsible for the murder that you are trying.
“Some of the similarities include – and again it’s accepted you will hear further details in due course – that both murders were committed against someone the defendant knew.
“Both of the murders involved a ferocious and sustained attack following either a real or perceived slight against the defendant by that person.
“Both murders were committed at night time in an unoccupied public space. Both murders involved violence inflicted to the head and neck area of the person with multiple blows.
“In both cases, both previous murder and the current one, there is evidence that the defendant was taking non-prescribed or illicit drugs.
“There are some differences. So, in the previous murder, as you’ll hear, a knife was used and the injuries at least in part were through stabbing.”
She added: “These are all matters, ultimately, for you to consider in due course.”
The prosecutor said it was for the judge to give jurors the legal directions they would have to follow in deciding whether or not the defendant was Mr Breach’s killer.
“A person is guilty of murder if they unlawfully kill another. The attacker must have intended either to kill or at a minimum to inflict really serious harm upon the deceased,” Ms Gaunt said.
“In this case, it is anticipated because of the level of violence towards the deceased that the killing was nothing other than unlawful.
“There will be no dispute about that given the severity of the attack, it is anticipated that whoever killed Phillip Breach must have intended to kill him or at a minimum cause him really serious harm.”
Ms Gaunt was part-way through her opening when, following a disturbance on the concourse outside, the jury was asked to take a break.
They returned before 5pm, when trial judge Mr Justice Murray apologised for the disturbance, said ‘certainly it has nothing to do with the defendant’, and asked panel of 16 jurors to return on Wednesday morning.
Jones, formerly of Abingdon Road, Oxford, denies murder.
The trial continues.
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