A WITNESS in the Ben Hitchcock murder trial saw one of the defendants attack the teenager with “a stabbing motion”, the Old Bailey has heard.

Summing up the prosecution's case, lawyer Edward Brown read out a witness statement from Paul Wilcox, who was in the Southend Road area of Beckenham when 16-year-old Ben died.

Mr Wilcox, who is a friend of defendant Mitchell Elliott, claimed he saw another defendant Andre Lawrence-Bennett attack Ben on June 23, 2007.

The statement read: “There was shouting and swearing and people were throwing planks of wood.

“I saw Andre on a bike. I saw his right hand go into his pocket. I saw him do a stabbing motion towards the person on the ground.

“He rode past me and stopped and then he said 'I think the youth's dead'.

“He then told me to hold the knife. I took it off him without thinking. By the time I could think of why he had given it to me, he had gone.”

Mr Wilcox, who is currently in prison for an offence unrelated to this case, went on to admit he hid the knife behind Sedgehill School.

He also claimed Lawrence-Bennett asked him what he had done with the knife later on, and that he told the defendant he had thrown it in a canal.

He added: “If I had told him it was behind the school, he would have made me go and get it.”

The court had previously heard how co-defendant Elliott threw out some of his clothes after the incident.

Mr Brown told jurors how Elliott had disposed of his “blood-stained” trousers shortly after the fight, and told officers it was a “general clear-out” of clothes.

Ben, of Blean Grove, Penge, was stabbed during a fight after he and friends from the Penge Block gang tried to gatecrash a party attended by rival Lewisham gang members.

The teenager's kidney was punctured when he was stabbed in the back in Southend Road, Beckenham. He died in hospital early the next morning.

Elliott, aged 19, of Howerd Way, Woolwich, and 18-year-old Lawrence-Bennett, of Brownhill Road, Catford, both deny murder.

Royston Thomas, aged 19, of Hazel Grove, Sydenham, also denies murder.

He has been declared unfit to continue with the case and will face trial again on November 16.

Olatunji Olulu, aged 18, of Firhill Road, Catford, who was charged with Ben's murder, was acquitted last week due to a lack of evidence.

The trial continues.