THE jury at Reading Crown Court was sent out to consider its verdict in the Jourdan Griffiths murder trial this afternoon.

Yesterday, a man who described four attackers stamping on Jourdan Griffiths was labelled an "unreliable" and "worthless" witness by a defence lawyer.

Daniel Hare was the only witness to tell Reading Crown Court he saw the attack at a squat in High Wycombe, though he said he did not see the 20-year-old get stabbed.

Three males stand accused of murdering Mr Griffiths, who died from a single stab wound in June last year.

Tim Raggatt, defending a 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, called Mr Hare “not just unreliable, not just biased...but worthless”.

He added: “He's given an account that simply can't be true...he didn't see what he claims...He won't have it that he was high as a kite on ketamine.

“I don't mean that he's a worthless person...he's ultimately a worthless witness.”

Mr Hare had told jurors he saw one of the attackers, in a white hooded top, holding a knife as he fled the squat on White Hart Street.

The 17-year-old was shown by CCTV footage to be wearing a grey hooded top after the attack, but his skin colour does not match Mr Hare's description, Mr Raggatt said.

The 17-year-old denies murder, along with Christopher Joseph, 22, and Lotto Williams, 19.

Mr Raggatt criticised the prosecution's case saying: “No one knows who did it...no one knows exactly when and how they did it...what led to it...the circumstances immediately surrounding it...what the reasons that lay behind it were...and that's called proof is it?”

“It is absolutely clear that Jourdan Griffiths was unlawfully killed...but this doesn't mean it was necessarily murder.”

He suggested the stabbing could have been a 'cock-up' by the man with the knife adding: “Nobody shouted stab him or get him or anything...nobody heard a sound like that.

“There's no evidence at all to suggest [the 17-year-old] was part and parcel of a plan to use a knife to cause injury to someone in that squat.”

He told jurors: “You may find it profoundly unsatisfactory...that you can't resolve this case. It's dreadful that they [Mr Griffiths' family] suffered that loss.

“But you know two wrongs don't make a right, however strong one may feel emotionally.”

He said the 17-year-old was of good character and his “pathetic” lies to police were understandable in the circumstances.

On the youth's decision not to go into the witness box Mr Raggatt said: “He's not here to be a prosecution witness against anybody else.”

Her Honour Judge Zoe Smith began summing up yesterday afternoon. She said because the prosecution cannot prove who stabbed Mr Griffiths, jurors must try each defendant as a 'secondary party' to murder and assume each did not hold the knife.

She said jurors could also find the three guilty of manslaughter.

The trial continues.