A MAN accused of being part of a gang who tried to stab a stranger to death said he had no idea what was being planned.

Donald Adu is on trial alongside Calvin Armstrong and a 16-year-old boy who cannot be named for legal reasons charged with luring Leon Sobers to an alleyway in Marks Tey and attempting to murder him.

The 25-year-old’s police interviews were read at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday where he accepted he had been on the walkway off Mandeville Road where the attack started on Halloween last year.

However, he insisted he had not participated.

Adu told detectives he was planning to drive back to London from Colchester when he was persuaded to drop a man he knew as Ls - who the prosecution say is Armstrong - and another person wearing a skeleton mask - believed to be the teenager - in Marks Tey.

But they then told him to come to the alleyway and pretend he knew Mr Sobers from a previous meeting.

“The guy in the mask threw a punch, well, I thought it was a punch,” Adu told police.

“I stood to the side and let him run off.

“They ran after him and I went to the car. I tried to drive off but I stalled.”

Adu said he watched on from a distance for roughly 15 seconds while the other two attacked Mr Sobers.

He added: “I should have driven off but if they could do that to him what were they going to do to me?”

Adu told officers the other males got back into his car and he was told to drive them back to Colchester.

When asked whether the incident was discussed he said someone had said they had ‘splashed him’, a term he knew to mean stabbing.

He also revealed the person alleged to be the teenage boy had complained there was blood on his white trainers.

Adu said he did not see any weapons just that the other two were swinging their arms but accepted there must have been given Mr Sobers’ injuries which included a protruding bowel.

He said he would never have driven his car to the road if he had known what was planned.

Adu, of Howard Road, London, Armstrong, of no fixed address, and the boy, who is from Colchester, deny attempted murder and an alternative charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

n The trial continues.