A dad-of-one “invented” claims a burglar threatened him with a gun shortly before he stabbed one of his accomplices to death, a court heard.
Prosecutors allege Karl Townsend concocted claims his childhood friend Jordan Brophy and two fellow burglars threatened his life in the seconds before he inflicted two sets of fatal stab wounds on him. Townsend and his half-brother Jamie Cunningham are on trial at Liverpool Crown Court for murdering Mr Brophy and for possession of a bladed article. Both deny the charges.
Townsend had discovered Mr Brophy and the other men burgling his Halewood home on October 29 last year. Prosecutors allege Townsend then attacked Mr Brophy “out of revenge or punishment”, inflicting two sets of wounds on him, one inside his home when he found him there and another a few minutes later outside on Beechwood Avenue.
