A defendant in an Ipswich murder trial has described the stabbing of a teenager as ‘disgusting’ in his latest evidence. 

Alfie Hammett, 19, and Joshua Howell, 18, have both been charged with the murder of Raymond James Quigley on January 17 last year in Westgate Street, as well as possession of an offensive weapon in a public place.

Hammett, of Larkhill Rise, Rushmere St Andrew, and Howell, of Wellington Street, Ipswich, both deny the charges. 

Howell pled guilty on Thursday to carrying an offensive weapon.

He had previously told the court that he met with Male 1, the suspect who the prosecution says stabbed Quigley and is Alfie Hammett, to sell him cannabis.

He had taken a machete with him for protection as he had done routinely for drug deals, the court heard.

The pair met at Suffolk New College but Howell says the deal took place in Cox Lane alleyway.

Howell then said he had another person to sell cannabis to in Buttermarket and Male 1 asked for directions to the German Donner shop in the town centre so they walked together in that direction.

The person he planned to sell to was not in Buttermarket and then he decided to continue on to the German Donner with Male 1 and they then encountered Mr Quigley with his two friends on Westgate Street.

 Howell said that he then thought one of Quilgey’s friends was running at him as Male 1 attacked Quigley so he chased the friend down the street with the machete to scare him off.

In the witness box on Thursday he said that he did not even see the attack on Quigley at the time.

 The court heard he ran off up Providence Lane and spent two minutes composing himself and then came back to the mouth of Westgate Street to see what had happened.

He then heard the words “he’s been stabbed” echo down the street from a panicked screaming voice.  

Howell said that at the time he thought it was Male 1 who had been stabbed and that it had all happened very fast.

He then went back to his father’s address at Samuel Court where he binned his clothes out of fear of being involved in the investigation, Howell said.

Later he went to his mother’s address in Bicester and then to a friend’s house in Oxford and finally on January 20 in the evening got a call from an officer saying “we can come to you or you can come to us” the court heard.

He was then arrested at his mother’s house.

The court heard that the police showed him the CCTV footage of Quigley being stabbed and Howell said when he saw it he thought it was ‘disgusting’.

However the prosecutor Andrew Jackson put it to Howell during the cross-examination that there was no drug deal and that the two defendants linked up for gang-related business.

The jury were shown several times CCTV footage from the area where the drug deal was supposed to have taken place and Howell said the video showed him taking his hand out of his pocket to exchange the cannabis while Mr Jackson said it did not.

It was suggested that Howell was part of the Ipswich Nacton Gang which is allied to the Norwich Third Side gang, which the prosecutor has said Alfie Hammett is part of, and that Howell was there to help Hammett on the Ipswich patch but Howell denied this.