Jodie Chesney trial: Drug dealer names co-defendant as person who stabbed Dagenham scout in Harold Hill
Jodie Chesney at London Pride 2018. Picture: Chesney family - Credit: Archant
A 17-year-old boy has been named in court by one of his co-defendents as Jodie Chesney’s killer.
The boy, who cannot be identified because of his age, is one of four youths on trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of the 17-year-old student.
Jodie, from Dagenham, was with friends in Amy's Park, Harold Hill, on the evening of March 1 when she was stabbed in the back by one of two figures who then ran off.
The prosecution has claimed she was not the intended target of a revenge attack over a drugs dispute.
Giving evidence, defendant Svenson Ong-a-Kwie, 19, denied that he was the attacker.
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The cannabis dealer told jurors had he no "beef" with any customers and was not seeking revenge for being stabbed in the leg on an earlier occasion.
Asked who did stab Jodie, Ong-a-Kwie named a 17-year-old co-defendant.
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His barrister Charlie Sherrard QC asked: "Were you with him at the time?"
Ong-a-Kwie replied: "I was, yes."
Mr Sherrard said: "Did you have any idea anything like that was going to happen?"
The defendant said: "No."
Ong-a-Kwie, of Hillfoot Road, Collier Row, told jurors he regarded the alleged getaway driver Manuel Petrovic, 20, as a "very close" friend who was like family.
He said they had been in business together dealing drugs and remained friends even after Petrovic crashed his car and lost Ong-a-Kwie's drug phone last December.
In his evidence, Petrovic, of Highfield Road, Collier Row, denied throwing Ong-a-Kwie "under the bus" by distancing himself from him.
Last week, Petrovic told jurors the pair were more like business associates than friends.
Ong-a-Kwie, Petrovic and two youths aged 16 and 17, from Barking and Romford, deny Jodie's murder.
The trial continues.
