A JURY has retired to consider whether a man robbed a schoolboy of his bicycle in a Carlisle park while holding a 3ft-long Samurai sword.
Jamie Chad Wilson, 31, is accused of offending involving a 13-year-old boy which is alleged to have occurred on August 28, and has gone on trial.
The teenager, now aged 14, told Carlisle Crown Court earlier this week that Wilson had approached him and asked to have a look at his bike.
“I dropped it to him,” said the teen in evidence. “Then he pulled a sword out with his left hand.” This was in a cover which was taken off by Wilson, said the boy, who stated that Wilson had asked: “What could I do with this?”
Wilson, he said, rode off on the bike, which the boy identified as his at a police station the next day. The teen took home a bike which Wilson had left at the scene. Asked why he didn’t stop Wilson taking his bike, the boy replied: “Because he had that sword.”
However, Wilson insists he and the boy merely agreed to swap bikes, and that he was simply taking the sword from one address to another.
Wilson’s lawyer, Jeff Smith, suggested in a closing speech to jurors that the boy had invented his story.
Wilson, of Millers Close, Botcherby, Carlisle, denies charges alleging robbery and unlawful possession of a bladed article. Jury deliberations are continuing this morning (WED).