![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_Michael-Fields-edit.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMichael Fields denies the murder of Paul Foster, who died after being stabbed in the back during a drugs ‘taxing’, but has admitted manslaughter<\/p>\n
Michael Fields is accused of the murder of Paul Foster<\/p>\n
A dad who is accused of murder has refused to name two men who he drove to the scene of a fatal stabbing due to fears he will be “opened up like a tin of sardines” in prison. Michael Fields, who is one of five defendants who are currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court<\/a> charged with murdering 47-year-old Paul Foster, told a jury this afternoon: “Snitches get stitches.”<\/p>\n Known as “Pablo”, the victim died after suffering a single stab wound to the back during a “taxing” at a flat on Muirhead Avenue in West Derby<\/a> in October 2024. His assailants were said to have been “tooled up” with a knife and an imitation firearm at the time of the robbery, stealing drugs and a quantity of cash from the address before fleeing.<\/p>\n Fields, who drove the gang to the scene, began giving his evidence to the jury of six men and six women today, Tuesday. He and his co-accused, Elsadig Abrahim, Zayd Alasaly, Dylan Blundell and Sarah Kasseum, have all pleaded not guilty to murder.<\/p>\n Having admitted manslaughter, Fields denied having been the man who stabbed Mr Foster or intending that he be killed or seriously injured during the incident. When asked by his counsel Paul Bogan KC “what he thought might happen, at worst”, he replied: “Worst case scenario, we had an imitation firearm. That should have been enough to scare him. At the very most, a couple of bruises maybe. But nothing more than that, and I’m sorry.”<\/p>\n Fields went on to describe how, during the autumn of 2024, he had been living in Maidstone in Kent for around a year, saying of his move down south: “Basically, I’d had a rough life in Liverpool. I wanted to go down there to get a fresh new start, to give my children a better life.”<\/p>\n Asked “what made him want to get away”, Fields said: “Drug use. I was on drugs at the time. I thought, if I go down there, I’ll get a fresh new start. I don’t know anyone down there who sells drugs.”<\/p>\n Fields recalled that he returned to Merseyside “every two or three months, to visit family” during this time, adding: “I can’t lie. While I was up here, I was enjoying having a little blowout on the drugs, smoking them. Not when I first come, but, towards the end, I’d be taking drugs.”<\/p>\n However, with his mum having undergone surgery relating to lung cancer in early October 2024, Fields stated that he “came up to help his mum”, remaining in the city for several weeks around this time. Asked whether he had known Mr Foster prior to the robbery, he told the court: “No, that was the first time I went to the premises.”<\/p>\n Fields also denied that he had purchased drugs from Mr Foster previously or that he had been owed money by the deceased. When Mr Bogan asked him “when the first time the name Paul Foster actually registered in his mind” was, he replied: “A few days later when Sarah told me, when she’d Googled it, in the ECHO. I would have walked past him in the street. I wouldn’t have even known it was him.”<\/p>\n Of the evening of October 14 that year, in the hours prior to Mr Foster’s being fatally stabbed early the following morning, Fields described how he was “driving about and getting high” and said: “I’ve got nowhere else to go. I’m in my vehicle, moving round. Whoever’s in the car, if they need to go somewhere, I was just facilitating them, driving them.”<\/p>\n Fields stated that his “recollection of conversations” that night was “75 per cent confident” and claimed that Blundell and Kasseum had first spoken of attending Muirhead Avenue. He added: “Dylan wanted to go and get some heroin off the lad who lived there. Sarah said it was stronger.<\/p>\n “Dylan and Sarah was talking. Sarah, as usual, says, ‘come on, just give us a lift down the road, it’s only round the corner’. We got into the vehicle and we headed towards Muirhead Avenue.”<\/p>\n Asked who was present in the car at this stage, Fields said “me, Sarah, Dylan, and there was two other occupants”. But, when Mr Bogan asked whether he was “willing to tell the court their names”, he responded: “Not necessarily, because I’m scared of reprisals, being in jail.<\/p>\n “Since I’ve been in Walton<\/a> jail, I’ve seen people getting cut up. It’s not nice. I don’t want to be opened like a tin of sardines. I don’t want to come out of jail with scars all over me for something I’ve not done. Without saying it in a bad way, if you’re in jail, snitches get stitches.”<\/p>\n Having been asked “how the conversation turned to robbery”, Fields said: “Dylan turned round and mentioned on the way there that Paul Foster would have been a soft touch. I didn’t expect it to be so violent.”<\/p>\n Fields said that he therefore believed they would be able to steal Mr Foster’s drugs “just using words”, with Kasseum having also apparently reported that “he’d be a pushover”. He added: “He wasn’t like Curtis Warren. He was more of a small time dealer.<\/p>\n “Theoretically, he would have just handed the stuff over. I’m not talking millions or thousands, a small amount of drugs. A couple of hundred pounds, give or take. He’s a small dealer. He wasn’t no big time dealer.”<\/p>\n Asked whether he had been “told whether Paul Foster himself was a drug user”, Fields replied: “Yes. Sorry, but I was told he was a dirty smackhead. God forbid. I’m sorry. Somebody who lives on the streets, not washing. Someone who sits outside Greggs with a cup, ‘have you got any change mate?’. Someone like that.”<\/p>\n Appearing in the witness box wearing a grey long-sleeved shirt, jeans and glasses, Fields stated that Kasseum had directed him to the address and agreed that “everyone in the vehicle was aware there was going to be a robbery”. He then recalled: “We parked up, sat in the vehicle. We put our face coverings on, got out the vehicle and walked along to Muirhead Avenue.<\/p>\n “Sarah said she’ll get the door open, because she knew the occupants. She’d been there numerous times before. She pressed the buzzer. Someone looked out out of the window. I’ve heard, ‘it’s me, it’s Sarah’. She’s opened the block door. Sarah said, ‘go on, hurry up’. Everybody run past Sarah and run into the block.”<\/p>\n Fields said that he then reached the top of the stairs to the flat last out of the four men due to his “bad legs”, adding: “I see Mr Foster in his doorway, pushing two males out and two males swinging their arms at him. One of the males was Dylan Blundell. I couldn’t tell you who the other male was.<\/p>\n “He’s leaning over, trying to push Dylan and the other lad. Dylan has gone over swinging his arms. I’ve seen them swinging their arms. Dylan has swung this one punch and punched Paul Foster to the back of his head or his back. I’ve seen him drop. I seen Foster fall to the floor and I stepped over him. I entered the property.<\/p>\n “He was lying face down on the floor. I seen a little bit of blood. I thought he’d had a punch to the face or something. That’s when I stepped past him and walked into the property.”<\/p>\n Fields said he then entered the living room of the property and found two “hysterical” women “screaming ‘there’s nothing here'”. While he stated that he had not stolen any items from the address, he recalled seeing Blundell taking a mobile phone and “some type of top”.<\/p>\n Having then left again, Fields added: “I seen Mr Foster lying on the floor, motionless. I saw him lying there in a whole swimming pool of blood. I’d never seen that much blood in my whole life. I was in shock.<\/p>\n “I was under the impression that he’d punched Paul in the back of the head, behind the shoulder. As far as I was aware, he just got punched in the back of the head or the back. I wasn’t aware that there was any knife.”<\/p>\n Fields said that he then “s*** himself” and ran back to his car, telling the jury: “We got into the vehicle. Sarah asked me did everything go ok. I turned round and said ‘what the f***, what the f*** have you done?’. That was it. I was shocked.”<\/p>\n Having returned to the home of a man named Tony Conroy in the aftermath, Fields stated: “I felt like I’d been to a funeral. There was just no atmosphere. Silent.”<\/p>\n Mr Bogan finally asked at the conclusion of his questioning: “While you were agreeing with the others to commit this robbery, did you think that anyone might be seriously harmed, seriously injured? Why did you think that wouldn’t happen?”<\/p>\n Fields replied: “All the information, with him being a drug user and being a bit of a pushover. Obviously there was three or four of us. That should have been enough.”<\/p>\n Mr Bogan then continued: “Knowing what you know now, he was stabbed and sadly died. How do you feel about that now?”<\/p>\n Fields responded: “Truthfully, disgusted. I feel sorry for the family. If I could turn the clock back, I would. But, obviously, I can’t.”<\/p>\n Abrahim, aged 61 and of Croxteth<\/a> Road in Toxteth<\/a>, 23-year-old Alasaly, of Corinto Street in Toxteth, 26-year-old Blundell, of Corsewall Street in Wavertree<\/a>, 41-year-old Kasseum, of Lower Breck Road in Anfield<\/a>, and 50-year-old Fields, of no fixed address, all deny murder and possession of a bladed article in a public place. Abrahim, Alasaly and Kasseum have also pleaded not guilty to robbery and carrying an imitation firearm with intent to commit an offence.<\/p>\n Blundell and Fields, however, admit these two counts, with the latter having similarly pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The trial, before Judge Simon Medland KC, continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Fields denies the murder of Paul Foster, who died after being stabbed in the back during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3869,1343,924,59,57,58,50,7804,56,54,55,17173,2552],"class_list":{"0":"post-543577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-anfield","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-gb","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-greatbritain","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-toxteth","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom","19":"tag-wavertree","20":"tag-west-derby"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}