Accused hid 'knife in backyard bin and hammer in bush' after...

Liam Matthews, Sean McLeod, and an adolescent boy deny killing Lewis Bell, age 26.

Hours after Norton father Lewis Bell was killed, a metal hammer was placed in a bush and a knife was hidden in a backyard bin,

according to a court ruling. Mr. Bell, 26, was stabbed to death just after midnight on Thursday, September 19, and Liam Matthews, 26,

Sean McLeod, 23, and the young person, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, acknowledge that they chased him from a drug

den on Norton Road in Stockton. All three deny murder.

On Wednesday, the jury was told that Matthews said he saw his two co-accused fighting with Mr Bell outside the “crack house” at 122B

Norton Road, and he joined in the chase. He says he did not harm Mr Bell. Matthews says that McLeod offered him £40,000 “to take

the rap for the murder.”

McLeod says he punched Mr Bell; and the youth says he was on Hills Drive in Norton, when the three men caught up with Mr Bell, but

he did not participate in the attack. Mr Bell died after being stabbed in the back, on Hills Drive. Ring doorbell footage captured a

grainy image of the attack and Mr Bell pleading for his life.

Peter Makepeace, prosecuting, told the court that after the alleged attack Matthews leapt over a fence on Stewart Road and hid the

knife – which the prosecution say was used to stab Mr Bell – in a bin. The jury was told that Matthews’s finger prints were later found

on the knife.

Mr Makepeace said that the youth defendant “accepted putting a blue metal hammer in a bush” after he left Hills Drive.

The trial heard that the police found a knife sheath outside the drugs den on Norton Road – where the victim and the the three accused

are said to have fallen out over drugs. The police were left with “a mystery” after realising that the knife found in the bin, did not fit

into the sheath.

“Was it not for Teesside Live” Mr Makepeace said, “that would have remained a mystery. A photographer captured an image of the

sheath, after police had cordoned off the scene and forensic officers were outside 122B Norton Road.”

The court heard that a teenage boy saw the photo in the press and contacted the police. He told them that he had ordered a combat

knife, which came in that exact sheath, and that he had had it sent to a friend’s home because he wasn’t 18. “He had only had the knife

for an hour, when some people came to his friend’s flat on September 16,” Mr Makepeace explained, “he said Sean McLeod took the

knife and sheath off him and threw £20 at him.”

The jury was told that McLeod called his mum after the alleged attack and told her: “I have f***** up again. I need to get out of the

area.” McLeod reportedly took a train to London King’s Cross, before returning to Teesside. He was arrested on suspicion of murder

on September 26.

One of Mr Bell’s sister’s made a police report in the days after September 19. Mr Makepeace said that she was buying drugs in

Eastbourne Park in Stockton, when Matthews told her that “Sean McLeod and another lad chopped Lewis Bell at each side.” The court

heard that Matthews said he was there, but not involved in the attack.

The 17-year-old boy, who the court heard was at the attack but says he was not involved, handed himself in at Middlesbrough police

station, two days later. The court heard that he had visited a friend and told her that he couldn’t go back to Stockton, that he had been

involved in a murder with his friends.

The girl later told police that the teen told her: “Somebody got stabbed in the heart – a crack head who had been taking somebody’s

money, so his friends had to do it.”

Liam Matthews, of of Quenby Road, Billingham; Sean McLeod, of no fixed address, and the youth, all deny murder.

Accused hid ‘knife in backyard bin and hammer in bush’ after murder of Lewis Bell, court hears