Harry Baker murder trial: Victim 'dealt drugs and carried knife'
- Published
Harry Baker was chased for about a mile by the armed gang before being stabbed and left to die, prosecutors claim
A teenager who was stabbed to death by a "murderous gang" gave free crack and heroin samples to drug users and carried a kitchen knife in his pants, a court heard.
Harry Baker, 17, of Cardiff, was found dead with nine stab wounds in a shipping container in Barry docks.
Six men and a boy deny murder. The boy cannot be named for legal reasons.
The prosecution at Newport Crown Court has suggested drugs were the motive for his killing, in August 2019.
Harry was staying with Poppy Davies, in Barry, in the days before his death, the court heard.
She said she met Harry, whom she knew as "Mitch," about a month before his death and understood he was a drug dealer.
She told jurors he gave her "a tester" of crack cocaine and heroin "to see what his stuff was like".
The body of Harry Baker was found at a compound in Barry Docks in August 2019
She shared the drugs with two friends, a mother and daughter, the jury heard.
Ms Davies said the teenager would sell drugs in the street outside her flat and asked her to pass his number onto others.
She said Harry would "sort me out with whatever drugs I needed", in exchange for somewhere to stay.
The court heard she saw him with "a kitchen knife" which was "about six inches to the handle to tip" that he kept knife "down his boxers".
His friend carried a machete "four or five times the size", Ms Davies told the court, and that after Harry stopped staying at her flat a group of men entered it without her permission.
They were "looking for something" and one "had his hood pulled up and like a scarf around his face".
'Burst into flat'
On realising he was not there they said they had "the wrong lead".
Recalling the same incident, Ms Davies' partner Michael Sparks, told the court: "They kind of burst into the flat.
"They came in like aggressively, saying 'Where is he, where is he'."
Mr Sparks said he "automatically knew" they were talking about Harry and his friend.
The court was told Ms Davies later received a call from Harry's phone.
She said the caller was disguising their voice and said: "We got your boy's phone, you won't be seeing your boy again".
She said she found out the next day Mr Baker's body had been discovered at the docks.
Leon Clifford, 23; Raymond Thompson, 48; Lewis Evans, 62; Ryan Palmer, 34; Peter McCarthy, 37; all from Barry; Leon Symons, 22, from Ely, in Cardiff, and a 17-year-old boy who cannot be identified deny murder.
Ms Davies said she was told Mr Clifford was one of the people who had entered her flat but she "didn't realise" at the time.
She told jurors she was partially sighted.
Asked if she was afraid of Mr Clifford, she said: "A little bit, yeah".
The trial continues.