Round and Watson were walking along the path in opposite directions, the court heard, and a study of CCTV footage from each access point to the canal “found no sign that anyone else came or went from it during the relevant period”. <\/p>\n
Williams told the jury: “As you will have gathered, Darren Round was not seen again until his body was found hours later, floating in the water.<\/p>\n
“We will come to details of the injuries which Round had sustained but, in short, they included facial fractures, two rib fractures, a fracture of a bone in his neck, and significant damage to his brain.<\/p>\n
“He was most likely still alive when he went into the water, though he may well have lost consciousness at or about the time he fell in.”<\/p>\n
The victim died from a combination of immersion and blunt force trauma, Williams said.<\/p>\n
He told the court: “We the prosecution say Round had been subjected to a serious assault involving a number of heavy blows to his face and chest, and his neck either being struck hard or more likely placed under severe, sustained pressure.”<\/p>\n
Watson was interviewed by police in June 2021 after being identified by two people, including a police officer, following a media appeal in March of the same year.<\/p>\n
He told police he knew nothing about the incident in which the 48-year-old had died, disputed that the man caught on CCTV was him and claimed he was “probably in pigeon park” , the grounds of Birmingham’s St Philip’s Cathedral \u2013 at the relevant time.<\/p>\n
In May 2024, Watson was interviewed again and denied having ever met Round, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Further forensic work concluded that the defendant’s DNA was present on the inside surface of the victim’s left, front, jacket pocket, Williams said.<\/p>\n
He also told jurors it was understood that Watson now accepts he “had an altercation with Round on the canal path and struck him repeatedly”.<\/p>\n
Williams said: “We understand it will be proposed that he \u2013 Mr Watson \u2013 was attacked by Round first and he only used reasonable force to defend himself.<\/p>\n
“There may also be a dispute about whether he caused all of Round’s injuries or, indeed, his death.<\/p>\n
“And it may be claimed that Round not only was conscious but shouting aggressively when he, the defendant, fled the scene.”<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Round and Watson were walking along the path in opposite directions, the court heard, and a study of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-617332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617332","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=617332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}