Llanelli: Man was fatally stabbed in self-defence, jury told

Police combing the garden of the house where Ashley Sarsero was stabbed last September

A man who fatally stabbed another man in the neck has told a jury he had been "in fear for his life".

James Alan Smith, 36, said he had not realised the knife he had drawn in self-defence had made contact with Ashley Sarsero in the early hours of 10 September last year.

Mr Smith added Mr Sarsero came at him with a baseball bat after discovering him with his mother in the living room of their Llanelli home.

He denies murdering the 26-year-old.

The jury at Swansea Crown Court had previously heard Mr Smith, along with his friend Stephen George Morgan, had been invited into Mr Sarsero's home by his mother, Claire Richards.

According to the prosecution, Ms Richards had met both men earlier that night outside a local garage and they had accompanied her back to her property.

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However, when Mr Sarsero turned up at the address in the Maestir area of Felinfoel, a heated argument began which spilled out into the front garden.

Mr Smith is accused of stabbing Mr Sarsero, who he had never met before, with "the full length of the blade, up to the hilt" before taunting him as he lay bleeding on the ground.

His co-defendant, Mr Morgan, also 36, denies having assisted an offender by telling Mr Smith to "go, run" while he called 999.

Mr Smith admitted to having cocaine, diazepam and prescription anxiety drug Pregablin in his system when he met Mr Morgan at Penyfan quarry on the evening of 9 September.

The pair smoked cannabis and drank alcohol before encountering Ms Richards, who had asked them to walk her back to her house as it was late and she was "alone and drunk".

While at the property, Mr Smith claimed Mr Sarsero walked in and asked who they were, before asking: "Where's the coke and the drink?"

When told there was not any, Mr Sarsero replied: "Well, get out then."

After being "wound up" by a comment from Mr Morgan, Mr Sarsero then went into the kitchen where Mr Smith claimed he heard the "clinking of metal in the cutlery drawer".

Upon leaving the house, Mr Smith told the jury Mr Sarsero came at him with a baseball bat and "something sharp in his hand".

Having produced a lock knife, bought the day before, from his "bum bag", Mr Smith then claimed to have raised his arm "in fear for his own life" in order to protect himself from being hit.

Ashley Sarsero was a "devoted son" who would "light up a room", his family say

He said he had not realised his blade had made contact with Mr Sarsero, whose bat then struck him in the shins causing him to fall over.

The defendant said he also saw Mr Morgan throwing "three or four punches" at Mr Sarsero's face.

Mr Smith was then asked by his barrister John Hipkin KC about doorbell camera footage which had captured him shouting "come out here, I'll stab you in the neck now", before launching into an expletive-filled rant at Mr Sarsero.

"I was just trying to deter him coming out by saying the most violent, ugliest things I could think of," he replied.

Afterwards, Mr Smith claimed Mr Morgan told him to flee the scene but added he had "wanted to stay and help".

Mr Morgan was arrested at the scene and Mr Smith turned himself in to police the following day.

Cross-examining Mr Smith, Michael Jones KC, prosecuting, called him "no stranger to having a knife" before revealing that in June 2023, the defendant pleaded guilty to possessing a five-inch knife at a pub.

He also referred to other previous convictions, including attempted robbery with a machete and assaulting his former partner.

In addition, Mr Jones detailed how, upon returning to his flat on Nelson Terrace after the alleged stabbing, Mr Smith washed the bloody knife before disposing of it in an "outside bin". It has not yet been found.

He claimed Mr Smith had also washed and disposed of items of clothing worn on the night in question, including "throwing a T-shirt into a dog bin" and "leaving his boots at his mother's house" to get rid of possible forensic evidence.

Mr Smith attributed this to "shock" and "not knowing what to do".

Mr Jones accused Mr Smith of having lied throughout his police statement regarding his involvement in the incident, which the defendant put down to the drugs he had taken.

He also pointed out no baseball bat, like the one Mr Smith claims his victim had wielded, was ever found at the address.

Stating Mr Smith had invented the claim of self-defence, Mr Jones added: "You told him what you were going to do to him and you did it, didn't you?"

The trial continues.