A FORMER boxer has told a jury that he wishes he had never left the house on the night a man died and his father and brother suffered knife wounds.

Jamahl Weaver admitted throwing a punch when fighting started outside the family home of John Pickering in Normanby, near Middlesbrough.

But he told a court he “just wanted to get out of there” when one of his best friends and murder co-accused stabbed father-of-four Mr Pickering.

Kieran Ibitson, 21, has pleaded guilty to a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm against his uncle.

Mr Pickering’s son Steven Willis, 27, was knifed through the heart and died, and his teenage son Lennon was also badly hurt.

The prosecution claims “a team” went to the house for revenge after a family feud involving Mr Pickering and his sister Susan Ibitson exploded at a wake on April 16.

The others in the dock at Teesside Crown Court are brothers Mark, 32, and Dominic Pickering, 23 and the boyfriend of Ibitson’s sister, Jack Cross, 21.

Mr Weaver was at home with his girlfriend having a parmo in bed when Ibitson turned up, banging on the door, saying he was going to have a “one-on-one” with his uncle – renowned for his violence.

It is alleged that Mr Weaver – a one-time amateur gold medalist for England – was recruited because he was “a handy lad”, but he said that did not mean he had a reputation as a street fighter.

He told Teesside Crown Court that he believed he was returning to the Teesside Bridge Club where Mr Pickering had fought with his nephew Mark and hit his sister Mrs Ibitson.

Ibitson was said to have been angry because of the clash at the wake, and Mr Weaver said he would have expected the emergency services to be there.

He was surprised, he said, when the car driven by Mr Cross went a different way and stopped outside of a house in Meadowcroft Road where Mr Pickering was bare-chested in his garden.

Under cross-examination from prosecutor Richard Wright, QC, he was asked why he got out of the car if he did not want to be involved in the trouble, and claimed he thought he was there to make sure everything was “sound”, but the punch he threw was “in panic” and “instinctive”.

He claimed as soon as he heard Mr Pickering shout he had been stabbed, and saw a weapon, he fled.

When the fighting came to an end, Mr Cross, Ibitson and the Pickering brothers left in the Ford Fiesta and Mr Weaver decided to run, saying: “I felt used.”

He ran down a dead-end, so called Ibitson and asked them to go back to pick him up, because he thought he was being chased.

He said after that he wanted nothing more to do with good pal Ibitson for dragging him into the trouble and went to the police the next day to tell them what he had seen.

Mr Wright accused Mr Weaver – as he had done Mr Cross – of covering for the others because he was frightened of them.

He said: “I am not really too bothered about the others, to be honest. I shouldn’t be here.

“I didn’t have no feelings for no-one. I didn’t understand why I had been brought into this situation. When I first got back in the car I said ‘what the f*** has just gone on there?"

All five men deny charges of murder and manslaughter, as well as wounding Lennon Pickering with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. All but Ibitson deny the same charge relating to John Pickering.

The trial continues.