Kieran Shepherd, 30, died after being stabbed to death on the street in Great Baddow, near Chelmsford, Essex – Joseph Dawe, Zack O’Keeffe, and Harrison Carpenter, all aged 20, deny murder
CCTV shows dog walker Kieran Shephaerd being chased by three men
New footage shows the moment a dog walker was chased by three men in broad daylight before being stabbed to death.
Kieran Shepherd, 30, died after an altercation in Great Baddow, near Chelmsford, Essex, on October 15 last year. Three 20-year-old men – Joseph Dawe from Great Baddow, Zack O’Keeffe, from Langdon Hills, and Harrison Carpenter, from Chelmsford, are on trial accused of his murder. All three men have pleaded not guilty.
Now, new CCTV footage played in court has been released by police, appearing to show three men chasing Mr Shepherd and his dog down the street at 12.24pm that day.
In the clip, the trio in dark jackets can be seen running towards Mr Shepherd as his dog on a lead paces ahead of him, before the group eventually end up out of shot.
Mr Shepherd was found on the ground six minutes later by a cleaner who had been working in a nearby building, and called 999.
He was as pronounced dead at the scene at 1.22pm.
Tracy Ayling KC, prosecuting, said in Chelmsford Crown Court earlier this month that Mr Shepherd was “clearly caught by the three men” and “shortly afterwards he was found dead, stabbed in the back twice with a knife”. She said the knife was “large” and left a wound of 13 to 15 centimetres.
Ms Ayling said the prosecution case is that the three defendants are “jointly responsible”. “One person may have delivered the fatal blows but the prosecution case is the three are jointly liable as they were acting together in a joint attack” she said.
During questioning by his barrister this week, O’Keeffe told the court he had dealt cocaine to the victim about “a month or two” before the incident, and that he and co-defendant Carpenter met the victim in an alleyway to supply drugs again around two weeks later.
He said of the second meeting: “I’ve given him the two wraps of cocaine, and I thought he would pull out money, but instead he pulled out a knife.”
O’Keeffe said he and his co-defendants were not deliberately looking for Mr Shepherd when they then spotted him on the street on October 15.
He went on to tell the court that he “panicked” in the aftermath of the incident and “couldn’t believe what I had just done”, reported the BBC. He told jurors: “If I didn’t defend myself, I felt like mine and my friends’ lives could have been at risk. I had no idea it was going to be fatal.”
He added that he was too “scared” to contact police, and, asked why he didn’t call an ambulance, said: “I didn’t think it was going to be this serious; I had no idea it would have ended like this.”
The trial continues.