A man accused of stabbing his best friend to death has been found not guilty of murder.
Taylor Fenwick, 22, was charged with murder following the death of 23-year-old Luke Miller in an alleged stabbing in Tadcaster on Boxing Day last year.
But today (Monday), a jury at Leeds Crown Court found Mr Fenwick not guilty after deliberating for four-and-a-half hours.
Mr Fenwick, a former Tadcaster Grammer School pupil who grew up in York, was arrested following the incident in Commercia Street at about 7am on 26 December.
Prosecutor David Brooke KC said that Luke, who was also a former Tadcaster Grammar pupil, had been stabbed to death with a large kitchen knife during an alleged drink-and-drug-fuelled argument in the street outside Mr Fenwick’s flat in Tadcaster town centre.
He said that Luke, from Tadcaster, was stabbed through the chest as he and Mr Fenwick grappled with the knife.
Mr Fenwick said that he had merely tried to “intimidate” his friend with the knife after he had kicked him out of his flat for unruly, drunken behaviour.
He told the jury that he and Luke were “best friends” and got on “very well” as they had “a lot of the same interests” such as football and they would play “Fifa (Soccer)” on Play Station together.
He said they both had a very similar taste in fashion and an “unhealthy obsession with clothes, shoes, stuff like that”.
When asked if they had ever had any “serious disagreements”, Mr Fenwick replied: “No, nothing like that.”
Pool of blood
During the prosecution opening in the first week of the trial, which lasted several weeks, the court heard that a teenage girl dialled 999 just after 7am after finding Luke lying in a pool of blood in the street outside the Costcutter store in Commercial Street.
An ambulance crew arrived to find Luke laid out in the road, unresponsive and not breathing, while a group of friends tried to resuscitate him. Paramedics arrived to take over resuscitation attempts but Luke’s heart had stopped and he was pronounced dead at 7.48am.
Among the group of youths and young men present was Mr Fenwick who appeared “frantic”. He told ambulance staff that he had “hit (Luke) once”.
When a paramedic asked those present who had stabbed Luke, Mr Fenwick said: “I did.”
He then claimed that Luke had “tried to break into his house”.
When police arrived on the scene shortly afterwards, Mr Fenwick told an officer: “I have done this – it’s me.”
Mr Brooke said that Mr Fenwick was “plainly very upset” and pleaded with paramedics to save his friend’s life, but Luke suffered fatal injuries from a single stab wound to the chest which pierced a lung and perforated the pulmonary artery. He also had cuts to his hand.
Stumbled down stairs
Mr Fenwick, of Rosemary Court, was charged with murder but denied the allegation.
Mr Brooke said that Luke had stayed overnight at Mr Fenwick’s two-bed flat above the Costcutter shop on Christmas Eve.
On Christmas Day, Mr Fenwick, Luke and several other friends went to a local pub before returning to the flat late at night where more drinks were consumed into the early hours of the morning.
At some point, Luke got into an argument with one of the girls in the group due to his drunken behaviour and was kicked out of the flat by Mr Fenwick.
Luke was eventually let back into the flat, but by about 5am most of the Christmas revellers had gone home and the argument between Mr Fenwick, Luke and the girl continued.
At about 7am, Mr Fenwick again told Luke to leave the flats, which he did. The girl later told police she looked outside to see Luke and Mr Fenwick “fighting with a knife”.
CCTV footage showed the two men “struggling over the knife” and then Luke “goes down on the ground”.
The female witness said she dashed out into the street to find Luke “covered in blood” as he was “trying desperately to get the knife off (Mr Fenwick)”, before collapsing to the ground.
When police arrived, they found a bloodied kitchen knife in the hallway of the apartment block. It was assumed that this was the knife used to kill Luke and which was then dropped by Mr Fenwick on his way back to the flat before the emergency services arrived.
During police questioning, Mr Fenwick said he had told Luke to leave the flat due to his behaviour but he “didn’t accept this and tried to break in”.
“He said there was an initial struggle on the outside stairs (of the flats) and in desperation he ran into the flat, picked up the knife and went back to the outer door to frighten (Luke) with the knife,” added Mr Brooke.
Mr Fenwick, a former York College student who had worked in transport logistics, claimed there was then “another scuffle” on the stairs outside the flat and that, during the struggle, they both “stumbled down the stairs and the knife had (accidently) gone into (Luke)”.
The following day, police also found a hunting knife which had been dumped in a green commercial waste bin outside the flats.
Mr Fenwick, an experienced hunter and fisherman, claimed he had only been carrying a kitchen knife on Boxing Day morning and not a second knife.
When asked what he intended to do with the kitchen knife, he responded: “To intimidate him.”
Hunt, shoot and fish
Mr Fenwick, who grew up in Bishopthorpe and whose mother worked in the NHS, said he had spent Christmas Day with his paternal grandparents in Richmond where he would often spend weekends up until his late teens and early 20s.
He said his grandfather had taught him to hunt, shoot and fish when he was very young and that he had always enjoyed “the outdoors”. Mr Fenwick, whose parents separated when he was a child, told the court he was “very close” to his grandparents.
His father was a retired firefighter who was based in York and his mother’s new partner was an armed response officer based at Tadcaster Police Station
Detective Constable James Fairest, the officer in charge of the investigation, said that in March this year a police forensic scientist had opined that it was the hunting knife which caused the fatal injury.
He said that in April, in a defence statement, Mr Fenwick claimed that “someone else present must have delivered the second, fatal blow with the hunting knife” which had been kept in his bedroom.
DC Fairest said that Mr Fenwick denied dumping the hunting knife in the green waste bin outside the flats.
He said it was the forensic expert’s belief that the kitchen knife may also have been used to injure Luke.
The police chief said that during interview following his arrest, Mr Fenwick was shown a photo of the kitchen knife and said: “That’s the knife that I used to stab (Luke) to death.”
Following the jury’s not-guilty verdict, judge Simon Phillips KC told Mr Fenwick he would be discharged from custody immediately.