Murder accused tells court 'I'm terribly sorry' for zombie knife killing

A drug dealer accused of murdering a 17-year-old has told a court: "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to kill him."

Georgie Mears, 19, of Thornhill, Cardiff, is accused of attacking Tristan Kerr with a 13.5cm (5.3in) zombie knife in February.

Mears had gone to a property in Abertridwr, Caerphilly county, to deliver two £25 bags of ketamine to Kerr in February, Newport Crown Court heard.

There, he said, Kerr tried to attack him.

Mears, along with Connor Palfrey, 25, from Abertridwr, Ricardo Elliot, 27, of no fixed abode, and Elexi Manny, 25, from Senghenydd, Caerphilly, deny murder by joint enterprise.

Kerr died after being stabbed through the heart and a lung.

The moment he collapsed and died was caught on the doorbell camera of a house further down Lower Francis Street.

"I honestly thought he was going to stab me," Mears said.

He said he was concerned when he went into the living room with the drugs and saw three other men there.

"There was a weird atmosphere, it was unsettling," he said. "I heard someone say, 'Chuck it here'.

"Tristan was moving towards me. The way he was walking, it was meaningful, not how you would approach someone if you were going to speak to them."

Kerr tried to punch him twice before pushing the defendant against a wall, Mears told the court.

A knife in Kerr's waistband became visible during the scuffle, the jury heard.

Mears said he knew Kerr had a history of knife use, and had seen a Snapchat video of him chasing Palfrey with a blade and a dog.

Mears said he took the knife out of fear.

He said: "I just stabbed him. If I didn't stab him he would have stabbed me. I feared for my safety.

"I knew he had a history of carrying knives and being a violent person. I genuinely thought he was about to attack me."

Mears, who the court heard had multiple driving offence convictions, demonstrated how he stabbed Kerr with a knife which he said was not his.

It did not seem, he said, to have any effect.

But as he drove away with his co-defendants he said he had an increasingly "sick feeling" about what had happened.

Mears told Chris Rees KC, defending him, that he just wanted to get out of the property and panicked when he saw the front room door handle was missing.

He told the court: "I was scared, I just wanted to get out of the room. There was no handle on the door.

"The only way was to go out through all these men."

The case continues.