A MAN accused of murder after a fight in a Gwent pub said “I could have killed him” as he walked away from his victim, a court was told.

Gareth Jenkins, 48, of Boundary Street, Brynmawr, is charged with the murder of Harry Towers, 56, in Abergavenny, where the latter lived.

Mr Towers died at Nevill Hall Hospital on December 22, 2010, seven weeks after taking what prosecuting counsel Andrew Thomas described as “a severe beating”

from Jenkins at the Britannia pub in Frogmore Street.

The pair headed outside to fight after an argument in the bar on October 28, 2010, Mr Towers having allegedly insulted Jenkins’ girlfriend some weeks before.

He sustained a fractured jaw, cheekbone and eyesocket, and a displaced fracture of a wrist, and had been repeatedly punched, said Mr Thomas, while defenceless on the ground.

Afterward, Jenkins walked away triumphantly, added Mr Thomas and “said, perhaps ominously, ‘I could have killed him’.”

Mr Towers spent a week in intensive care immediately afterwards, before being moved to a trauma and orthopaedic (T&O) ward, but never fully recovered.

“He was in a permanently confused and agitated state.

He did not recognise people, understand where he was, or why he was there,” said Mr Thomas.

His condition deteriorated and after a further threeand- a-half weeks in intensive care, he died.

Jenkins was charged with murder last August. The intervening months involved detailed medical investigations as Mr Thomas said Mr Towers was found on the T&O ward floor three times having apparently fallen “and appears to have suffered further head injuries as a result”.

A CT scan revealed a rightside skull fracture not detected on his original admission, nor in scans up to and including November 8, 2010.

Mr Thomas told the court the injuries Jenkins inflicted do not have to be the sole cause of Mr Towers’ death, and these must have made “a more than minimal contribution”

having started “a cycle of decline that led directly to death”.

He argued that the subsequent head injury did not break the link to Jenkins, Mr Towers having had the falls due to the injuries inflicted.

The court heard from Jade Woodhouse, daughter of the Britannia’s landlord, who said she had seen Jenkins hit Mr Towers “numerous”

times in a passageway while the latter was on the floor, though her evidence is being disputed.

Proceeding.