A TEENAGER accused of the murder - with three others - of a man in Newport last January, described to a jury how he punched the victim in the shoulder during an altercation on a city street.

Callum Banton, 18, of Fleetwood Close, Newport, said the punch was “not a hard one” and had no effect on 41-year-old Jan Jedrzejewski.

A drunk Mr Jedrzejewski was minutes earlier ejected from the Cromwell Store on Cromwell Road, Newport, after urinating on stock and falling asleep on the counter.

Banton, Shaquille Crosdale, also 18, and also from Fleetwood Close, Richard Wallis, 43, of Keene Street, Newport, and a 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, all deny the charge that they murdered Mr Jedrzejewski on January 12 this year.

He was found unconscious in Keene Street late that evening, and died the next day at the Royal Gwent Hospital.

Cross-examined by prosecuting counsel William Hughes QC, Banton admitted he could have left the scene on his bicycle after buying sweets and a drink from the shop, but had not as Mr Jedrzejewski “was going after my friends”.

Banton described Crosdale throwing a piece of wood at Mr Jedrzejewski, which bounced off him.

The youth then kicked him in the lower back. Mr Hughes asked if Banton would describe this as having been a “kung fu kick”.

Banton disagreed. He said the kick “had no effect, he was still going for Shaquille”. He then described his punch to Mr Jedrzejewski’s “shoulder area”, after which the latter had walked off.

“He took a couple of steps forward and I saw him fall over, like he tripped over his own feet,” said Banton.

He then saw Wallis, who minutes earlier helped stop the man from re-entering the shop, running up the street.

Asked by Mr Hughes if he saw Wallis kick Mr Jedrzejewski, Banton replied: “It happened fast”.

Mr Hughes asked: “When you saw that kick, what did you do?” Banton said: “I ran off. I was panicking.”

He described fetching his bike, pedalling back along Keene Street, seeing Crosdale in Wallis’ kitchen, and meeting the youth again, telling him Wallis had been “an idiot” for kicking the man.

They went to a friend’s house, Crosdale arriving later. Banton said he heard the man was dead via a phone call to the friend from store worker Jermaine Taylor. He, Crosdale and the youth then changed their clothes.

Banton later told police: “I was thinking they are just going to think it is me straightaway or something. “I was the last one to leave the scene.”

Proceeding.