'TEEN PLAYED NO ROLE IN MURDER'.

Byline: Barry Gibson ,

Barrister says 16-yr-old not part of gang

A TEENAGER accused of a vicious killing played no part in the attack, a court heard.

The 16-year-old, who cannot be named, denies murdering Birkby taxi driver Mohammad Parvaiz last July 22.

The father-of-three was battered to death after being lured to a bogus fare at Field Head in Golcar.

Christopher Murphy, 18, Graeme Slavin, 18 and two 17-year-olds also deny murder, while 19-year-old Michael Hand changed his plea to guilty earlier in the trial.

Jurors at Leeds Crown Court heard the closing argument yesterday from the 16-year-old's defence barrister.

Mr Henry Grunwald QC said his client was not close friends with the others accused.

He said: "He was not a trusted, integral part of the group, he was not one of the pack - he was the new kid on the block."

While the teen had been on Field Head that night, he was unaware of any plot to lure a taxi there.

Earlier in the trial the teen had told the court that he had been urinating in an alleyway off Field Head when the taxi arrived, and had fled when he heard smashing glass.

Mr Grunwald said: "If there was a plan, he was not a part of it.

"He did not agree with anyone to kill a taxi driver, he did not agree with anyone to cause serious injury - and he did not agree with anyone even to cause damage to the taxi."

Mr Grunwald denied that his client had acted as lookout while his co-accused attacked the Lockwood Taxis people carrier.

He said: "Everyone seems to be agreed that my client did nothing to the taxi driver.

"The prosecution have suggested he acted as lookout out of desperation because they don't have any other role to ascribe to him.

"But you don't need a lookout."

And Mr Grunwald said prosecution claims that the teen had thrown a stone at the taxi, causing a dent in its rear, had not been proved.

He said: "This vehicle was very closely examined and there's no safe evidence of a dent."

All of the accused except Murphy and the 16-year-old were arrested on the night of the attack.

And in the following days, Mr Grunwald alleged, Murphy manipulated his client, persuading him to tell detectives that the pair had fled the scene at the same time.

He said: "My client will always rue the fact that he allowed himself to be persuaded to lie to help Murphy. He isn't very streetwise. He stupidly lied, but the price for that stupidity should not be being convicted of this offence."

And Mr Grunwald went on to say that his client was not guilty of the lesser charge of violent disorder, to which all the other accused have pleaded guilty.

Later the judge, Dame Heather Steel, began her summing up of the case.

She asked the jury not to let emotion cloud their judgement.

Summarising what the accused claimed had happened that night, she said: "In each case the defence is that the accused was not there when the fatal attack took place."

She also told the jury about the defendants' police records as a guide to their character.

Murphy, the jury heard, was reprimanded in 2002 for obtaining property by deception and convicted of theft two years later.

Slavin was cautioned for taking a vehicle without the owner's consent in September 2005.

The 16-year-old and one of the 17-year-olds have no convictions, cautions, warnings or reprimands. But the other 17-year-old has been questioned under caution four times.

The case continues.