A TEENAGER who inflicted a fatal knife wound on Jack Woodley during a vicious and frenzied gang attack has admitted cleaning blood from the blade with bleach.

The 18-year-old, from Newton Aycliffe, died the night after he was stabbed in the back with a Rambo-style knife as he left the Houghton Feast funfair last October.

A 15-year-old, who has admitted manslaughter, but is on trial for murder, admitted on Thursday he did not want police to be able to link the 10-inch knife to the attack.

A jury at Newcastle Crown Court heard he ‘wanted to get rid of it’ and enlisted the help of a female friend, despite knowing she could be arrested, because “I knew she would say ‘yes’.”

The boy told prosecuting counsel Mark McKone QC, who was cross examining him, he used bleach to clean the knife.

Mr McKone asked: “How did you feel when you were wiping Jack’s blood off the knife?”

The boy replied: “I had a lot of emotions, but it was mostly sadness, and being scared.”

“I needed help. I needed a house I could go to clean the knife and stuff like that.”

Earlier in the week he said he was “just kind of waving it around” as people congregated in the vicinity of Jack at the entrance to an alleyway, off The Broadway, Houghton-le-Spring, near The Britannia pub.

The jury has been told the fatal wound was inflicted after Jack was ferociously kicked, punched and stamped on by a group of teenage boys after one of them got him in a headlock and started the attack.

The 15-year-old boy, who said he had not intended to stab Jack, said he had considered handing himself in, and probably would have done if he had not been arrested by police on October 18, two days after the attack.

The following day, as Jack lay on a life support machine at the RVI in Newcastle, hours before he died, the boy said he went to the beach with his dad for chips and out for a pizza with girl he knows.

He said: “I felt sick. I went out with my dad. I couldn’t eat at all. I had very bad paranoia. On the Saturday night I could not sleep at all. I was sweating. I just felt sick and extremely scared.

“I knew he was in hospital but I still didn’t think he was going to die.”

The jury was told the boy admitted lying to detectives in his first two police interviews.

Mr McKone asked why he did not tell the truth from the start.

He said: “At the point of the interviews it had not sunk in.

“It is only recently it has properly sunk in.

“They are the main reasons why I decided to change my plea and give a confession because it had sunk in.

“That is the truth and the reality of the situation.

Read more: Eyewitness tells murder trial of attack

“I was scared. I wasn’t thinking straight. A lot was going through my head. “When it properly sunk in I would have gone to the police. I knew sooner or later it would come back to me.

“I was disappointed in myself by at the same time I do not really remember my feelings because I was zoned out with shock.”

Nine other defendants accused of involvement in the attack on Mr Woodley, aged between 14 and 17 at the time, also deny murder.

The 15-year-old said: “At the end of the day Jack is someone’s son. He has got a mum he has got a father.

“He should never have died. He should never have been stabbed. He should never have lost his life.”

The trial continues.

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