Shocking footage captured the moment a man was stabbed in the heart during a fatal daytime knife fight.
Billy Ripley, 20, was stabbed to death in a church graveyard in Hailsham, East Sussex, in the early evening of August 29 last year.
The jury at Lewes Crown Court was told a 17-year-old boy plunged a knife 8cm into Mr Ripley’s chest, slicing a rib and the breast bone.
CCTV footage, played to the jury, shows Mr Ripley and the boy, squaring up to each other.
As the pair move out of view, Ryan Richter for the Crown said the boy stabbed Mr Ripley in the heart.
A CCTV camera then picks up the teenager leaving the same way.Â
Moments later Mr Ripley can be seen running back to the town centre, still carrying his knife and clutching his chest.
The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named due to his age, denies murdering Mr Ripley.
The boy told police: ‘As I approached him, he walked towards me too.
‘He pulled a large machete out of the waistband of his jeans and started whacking me with it.
‘He is a lot bigger than me and physically imposing and intimidating. I pulled a knife I had in my trouser waistband.
‘He hit me with his machete I think twice, and I blocked it with my left forearm. I stumbled back and he approached me again and hit me again.
‘I swung my knife towards him and hit him once in his torso. I turned around and ran towards my bicycle and rode away as fast as I could.’
Mr Richter told the jury: ‘The prosecution case is on that day, the boy chose to have a fight with Billy Ripley and acted aggressively towards him.
‘He used a knife with significant force to stab him in his chest and into his heart.’
Mr Ripley went back to the town centre where his friend Ella Doe, 18, was waiting for him to return.
In a recorded interview with police, she said: ‘He wasn’t so panicky. He was panicking but not so; ‘I’m going to die’.
‘He looked like he was walking fine towards me, but he looked like he was in pain. I think he didn’t want to show like he was in pain.
‘He went to walk, then there was a man who put his T-shirt on him to try and stop the blood. I saw his T-shirt was cut and I saw blood.
‘I saw him walking with his hand on his chest saying; ‘I’ve just been stabbed’.
‘He had his hand on his chest. My phone was dead. I was talking to people telling them to get an ambulance.’
Medics tried to save Mr Ripley’s life for over an hour but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The confrontation started when the teenager spotted Mr Ripley sitting at the war memorial.
Ms Doe said the boy shouted over to Billy asking him to meet him round the corner.
‘He said it like he knew what he was doing and knew he was going to do something to him because he asked him to go around the corner with him.
‘He was saying it loud and clear, Come round the corner, come round the corner,’ Ms Doe said.
Family members wept as the court was shown CCTV of his last moments.
The boy was identified by witnesses at the scene and arrested within an hour, Ryan Richter for the Crown told the juryÂ
He claimed Mr Ripley attacked him with a knife and he swung his own blade at him once before running away.
In a prepared statement, the boy told police: ‘I did not murder Billy Ripley. I acted in self-defence.’
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Mr Ripley had spent the day with Ms Doe, celebrating her 18th birthday.
Mr Richter said: ‘She saw Billy going into the churchyard. Soon after he came running back.
‘He told her to call an ambulance as he had been stabbed. He was holding his chest and she could see blood,’ Mr Richter said.
A witness driving past the churchyard saw Mr Ripley and the boy facing off.
‘One of them seemed to have something on the right-hand side of his chest. Mouth open, eyes open, in what he thought was a state of shock’.
The trial at Lewes Crown Court continues.
