The boy – who denies charges of perverting the course of justice, along with four other teens – told the Youth Court that Morgan “had seemed to be in a different mental state” from Christmas 2014.
“My parents began to ask questions and advised me that he was not a good person to be around, especially with exams coming,” he said. “So I began to distance myself from him and became friends with the other defendants.”
The boy was the first of the defendants to give evidence yesterday, questioned by his lawyer, Michael Preston. It followed the Court’s rejection of an application by defence lawyers to get the case thrown out by arguing that the boys were trying to avoid getting in trouble with their parents rather than trying to thwart a police investigation.
Taking the stand, the defendant – who lived in the house where the defendants and Morgan had slept following a party at another property – said that he had assumed that Morgan was “just in another one of his states of taking drugs” when moving the unresponsive teenager 160 yards on 5 July last year.
The boy said that, after discovering an unresponsive Morgan in the garage at around 9 am, he went to get help to move him because “I did not want to see my parents seeing Morgan in the state he was in.”
“I was worrying and panicking about Morgan and also how my parents would react. I woke the others up and suggested that we move him around the corner of the house so my parents would not see him.”
He added that he and a co-defendant had tried to call 999 but the phone would not connect. At this stage, he began to panic further, which influenced his actions and recollections of what happened on the day.
Asked why he had initially told the police that he had found Morgan in the road, the defendant said: “I had no plan to lie to the police. I was panicky and I guess I freaked out a bit. I did not think I was suspected of anything.”
Asked if he had tried to thwart an investigation, the defendant said: “No, I did not.”
The defendant continues to give evidence today.
