FORENSIC evidence suggests Phoenix Lee was the person to pull the sheath off a large knife used to kill Alinjavwa Siwale, a court heard.

Lee and co-accused Sheldon McKay, 25, entered Mr Siwale’s home, in Affleck Road, Colchester, with force shortly after midnight on December 11.

The prosecution say Lee was armed with a long combat knife later found at the scene.

It is alleged Lee and McKay launched an attack on Mr Siwale, delivering slash wounds to his back and front before a fatal stab wound penetrated his lung. Lee denies he wielded a knife at any point.

In cross-examination, Jane Bickerstaff QC said a forensic scientist relied upon by the prosecution took a sample from the part of the sheath “most likely” to have been gripped in order to pull out the blade.

She said the sample matched that of Lee and Lee’s girlfriend, but excluded Mr Siwale and Sheldon McKay as contributors.

She said: “What I’m suggesting to you is the location of [the sheath], where it was found near to the front door, and the forensic findings, would suggest it was you who took the sheath off that knife and dropped it, and that’s right isn’t it?”

Lee responded: “No, that’s not.”

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Ms Bickerstaff said: “You, I suggest, had taken that knife with you to those premises and you unsheathed it as soon as you got in and you used it, didn’t you?

“What I am suggesting to you on behalf of the prosecution is that you and Mr McKay were acting together, weren’t you?

You attacked him together.”

Lee issued a firm denial to both suggestions.

Ms Bickerstaff said the court had heard evidence from a woman on the other end of a phone call with Suwi Siwale at the time Lee and McKay forced entry to the house.

Ms Bickerstaff added: “She was talking to Suwi about holidays, she said: ‘Some time later I could hear a loud banging coming from the phone. The banging continued and got louder. It sounded to me like banging a door.

“‘I can’t describe what the noises were, but they were loud enough for me to hear. The noises scared me, I just froze. I thought some sort of fight was occurring.”

Ms Bickerstaff suggested the witness heard either Lee or McKay shouting those instructions, a suggestion Lee rebuffed as “untrue”.

Ms Bickerstaff also took aim at Lee’s claim he handed himself in to the police in order to “tell his side of the story”, pointing to the fact he answered “no comment” to all questions asked.

She said: “You were using your solicitor’s advice as a convenient excuse.

“Because if you’d really been attacked with a knife and injured and done nothing more, that would have been the first thing you wanted to establish to tell the police wouldn’t you?”

Lee responded: “That’s not what I did.”

Ms Bickerstaff said: “I know it’s not what you did, because it’s not true.”