Boyfriend tells court how Jodie Chesney collapsed in his arms after stabbing

The boyfriend of Girl Scout Jodie Chesney has given an emotional account of how she collapsed in his arms after being fatally stabbed.

Eddie Coyle, 18, and Jodie, 17, had been with a group of their friends smoking and listening to music on a bench in Amy’s Park, Harold Hill, east London, when two figures came out of the darkness on the night of March 1.

The popular A-level student began to faint after she was stabbed in the back by one of the youths, jurors have been told.

Mr Coyle caught her and gently laid her on the ground as he called for help, the Old Bailey has heard.

Jodie was pronounced dead before she arrived at hospital, despite the efforts of medics.

Manuel Petrovic, 20, Svenson Ong-a-Kwie, 19, and two youths aged 16 and 17 are jointly accused of her murder.

The prosecution allege all played a part in the killing, but 6ft 2in tall Ong-a-Kwie matched eyewitness descriptions of the stabber.

The court heard how Jodie and Mr Coyle were both studying A-levels at Havering Sixth Form College.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, Mr Coyle said they had been going out for three months.

On March 1, Mr Coyle said he met Jodie at college and they made a plan to go to Amy’s Park with a group of friends.

They were caught on CCTV walking along St Neot’s Road towards the park at about 6.50pm.

Mr Coyle told jurors: “We were about to sit down, chill out, listen to music, have a couple of fags, about usual for us – drinking alcohol and smoking some weed.

“We had a joint between the group of us. We did have more on us but we did not get to smoke it.”

Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC asked if he had been affected by the cannabis.

The witness said: “Not really, we had only just started smoking it.

“I was standing in front of Jodie, who had her back to the side entrance sitting in the table.”

Describing the attack, he said: “I saw them – two men – walk towards us from the entrance.

“They got close to the gate. One or both of them started running.

“One of them hopped the fence towards us, the other went through the gate.”

He said one of the men was tall and skinny, the other shorter and stockier.

The teenager went on: “They came towards us and then the taller one came right up behind Jodie.

“The taller one swung his arm out and then stabbed Jodie in the back.

“I thought he was going to punch her at first.

“She was in shock at first. She did not know what had happened.

“She started screaming continuously, very loud, about two minutes straight.

“After she stopped screaming she began to faint. At this time she was falling off the bench.

“The guys ran off. I did not really see – I was trying to catch Jodie at the time.

“I managed to catch her, put her on the floor.

“She was wearing a thick jacket so we did not know how bad the wound was at first, but there was a lot of blood.”

Mr Coyle said he called out for help and two women came and asked what had happened.

He said: “I said ‘she’s been stabbed’. They said ‘really’, then gave as much help as they could.”

Mr Coyle told jurors that neither of the attackers said anything, and he only saw something “small and dark” in the hand of one of them.

Mr Aylett asked: “What sort of person was Jodie?”

Mr Coyle replied: “A great person, very funny, silly, sensible sometimes.”

The prosecutor asked: “You had been going out with her for three months or so, can you think of any reason why anybody would want to hurt her?”

The witness said: “No. No reason.”

He told jurors Jodie had been “laughing one second” before she was attacked.

Cross-examining, Sarah Forshaw QC, for Petrovic, asked if the group were expecting another delivery of cannabis, after one of them had got some earlier.

Mr Coyle said they were not.

Earlier, Mr Aylett told jurors: “The prosecution allege that whichever of the defendants it was who stabbed Jodie Chesney in the back to a depth of up to 18cm, he must have done so intending to kill, even if Jodie had not been the original target.

“As for the others, it would suffice for each of them to have been a party to a plan intentionally to cause at least really serious harm.”

The defendants, from east London, deny the charge against them.