Murder-accused Chelsea Powell tells jury stabbings did not seem real

CCTV footage shows Jake Hill, 25, and Chelsea Powell, 22, entering the Eclipse nightclub in Bodmin

A woman accused of murdering a rugby player outside a nightclub in Cornwall has told a jury her co-defendant told her he had stabbed several people.

Chelsea Powell, 22, and Jake Hill, 25, both from Bodmin, deny murder after Michael Riddiough-Allen suffered a fatal stab wound on 30 April.

Mr Hill is also accused of stabbing five other people.

Truro Crown Court heard Mr Hill told Ms Powell outside the club: "We need to go. I've stabbed all these people."

Giving evidence to the court, Ms Powell said she replied by saying: "Why would you come out with a knife?

"Why would you stab people? I've got kids and you've got kids. I don't want to be around anyone like that." Ms Powell's lawyer, Chris Henley KC, asked her how confident she was in her memory of Mr Hill saying those words.

Michael Riddiough-Allen, 32, died after he he suffered stab wounds on 30 April

She replied: "Very confident. It plays in my mind every day."

The jury heard Ms Powell and Mr Hill had been together for much of the night and that they walked home together after the incident outside the club.

Ms Powell was asked why she had stayed with Mr Hill after the fighting if he had told her that he had "stabbed everyone".

'In disbelief'

"I didn't believe him," she told the court. "I didn't see him with a knife or any blood. It didn't seem real to me."

Under cross-examination by prosecution barrister Mark Cotter KC, Ms Powell said she was "in disbelief".

Mr Cotter KC reminded Ms Powell of evidence the trial had previously heard from a man who had been with her and Mr Hill at the house they walked to. That witness told the court Mr Hill had been openly wearing the knife around his chest at the house afterwards and "wasn't bothered we could all see it". "Do you agree with that?" Mr Cotter asked Ms Powell.

"No. I didn't see the knife," she replied.

Ms Powell was asked why she had become involved in what she said was a large fight involving both men and women. "My thought was just to protect the girls from getting hit," she said. "It was really big blokes hitting them and dragging them around the floor.

"It wasn't anything to do with me. It was just an instinct I had to get them away from that."

The trial continues.