THE TEENAGER accused of murdering Carlisle man Lee McKnight cried as he called his father to ask for help after the attack, a jury heard.

Paul Roberts, 51, who admitted taking fresh clothes for his son to the Charles Street property where Mr McKnight, 26, was beaten up, made the claim as he was cross-examined at Carlisle Crown Court.

He is one of six people - including his son - currently on trial accused of murdering Mr McKnight on July 24 last year.

Roberts senior told Carlisle Crown Court that when Jamie Lee Roberts, 18, called him on the morning when Mr McKnight died he had assumed that the teenager was involved in a burglary as part of a bid to settle the debt he owed to fellow accused Jamie Davison.

“He said he needed help,” said Roberts senior as he described his son’s phone call.

“He said he needed me to get him out of that house...He was in trouble and he was with Jamie Davison and he was crying and he wanted me to get him out of that house.”

The prosecution say Mr McKnight was “lured” to Charles Street by Coral Edgar, who rented the Charles Street house, because he owed a drugs debt to Davison. He was then attacked by Davison, Graham, and Jamie Lee Roberts, say the prosecution.

Seriously injured but still breathing, Mr McKnight was then put into a Nissan Navara jeep belonging to Coral’s mother Carol, 47, and driven to farmland south of Carlisle and “dumped” in the River Caldew.

Richard Pratt QC, for Davison, suggested that Roberts senior, after arriving at Charles Street with a change of clothes, had “deactivated” Mr McKnight’s mobile phone.

Roberts denied this.

“You were under no illusion,” said the QC, “that your son had been principally involved in attacking Lee McKnight.”

Roberts senior, originally from Millom, said: “I think that’s ridiculous.”

“That’s why you involved yourself in the way you did,” said the QC. “I went there to get my son out of that house,” said Roberts. Mr Pratt said: “You’d do anything at all to save him from trouble - serious trouble.” “No, sir,” replied Roberts.

Mr Pratt said it was Jamie Davison and Arron Graham who raised concerns about Lee McKnight’s health that morning and wanted him to go to hospital.

“You couldn’t be further away from the truth, sir,” retorted Roberts.

The QC suggested it was in fact Roberts senior and his son Jamie Lee who took Lee McKnight out of Charles Street and put him into the Nissan Navara jeep.

“No, sir,” said Roberts. “I’d have helped if they’d asked me.”

Mr Pratt said it was Roberts senior who drove Mr McKnight to the river and dumped him, prompting this from the defendant: “I have never been in that car - not ever.”

In later evidence, Roberts described leaving Charles Street after dropping off the spare clothes and then throwing a mobile phone he found at Charles Street down a drain, assuming it belonged to his son.

When the phone dropped, it initially landed on a ledge in the drain, he said, so he emptied a bottle of water over it to dislodge it.

He then realised, he said, that he had not got his house key and so went back to Charles Street. While there, he saw Jamie Davison in the kitchen and Lee McKnight lying on the floor, with a towel placed behind his bloodstained head.

He knelt down to look at him. Roberts said he checked Mr McKnight’s pulse - both at his wrist, his thigh and his neck.

Fiona Horlick QC asked him: “You did some CPR? [cardiopulmonary resuscitation]” “Yes, mam,” said Roberts.

He accepted he had no idea what involvement his son may have had.

Questioned about what help he gave to Mr McKnight, Roberts said he did chest compressions for about five minutes and after this he could hear him breathing ‘slowly’.

The defendant said he believed Jamie Davison had taken cocaine.

Arron Graham, he said, had appeared in the house behind him. He said he had seen Graham and Jamie Davison carry Mr McKnight out of the house. He believed Mr McKnight would then be taken to hospital, he said.

“I didn’t see what other choice they had,” he said. Roberts said Davison had not supported getting Mr McKnight medical help.

“He was being threatening - it wasn’t going to happen, an ambulance.”

Asked why he did not stand up to Davison, Roberts said: “I’m the dad of his punter; that’s all I am to him, Jamie Davison and the people above him.

“That’s what you worry about.”

Ms Horlick said: “Arron Graham wasn’t in that house that night, was he?”

Roberts replied: “He was, mam.”

During his first visit to Charles Street that morning, he said he understood that Mr McKnight was going to be taken to hospital.

“At that point, it wasn’t as dire as it appeared to be the second time,” he said, referring to his later return to the house.

He accepted it would have been in his son’s interests to ensure Mr McKnight was taken in the Nissan to hospital and he should have gone in the vehicle to ensure that happened.

“That’s what I should have done, yes,” said Roberts.

Cross-examined by prosecutor Tim Cray, Roberts accepted that he was a "man of the criminal world," who had been in trouble all his life. His past offences included storing drugs for dealers, he accepted.

"I was made to help out," said Roberts. The defenant accepted that his son had tried his hand at drug dealing.

The QC said Jamie Lee Roberts was then trying to raise money for "Mr Carlisle" - a reference to Jamie Davison.

"Your way of life," continued Mr Cray, "means you would not have thought twice about helping drug dealers if it helped him [his son]." Roberts said it had been a long time since he was in trouble.

He accepted he did not like going to Charles Street because in the past Carol Edgar's dog had bitten him.

Roberts denied that he had been asked to get rid of Mr McKnight's property - his trainers and phone. 

All six defendants deny murder.

They are Jamie Davison, of Beverley Rise; Arron Graham, 26, of Blackwell Road; Jamie Lee Roberts, 18, of Grey Street; Coral Edgar, 26, of Charles Street; her mother Carol Edgar, 47, of Charles Street; and Paul Roberts, 51, also of Grey Street, Carlisle. The trial continues.