THE young man who delivered the fatal stab wound to a teenager told a jury how he “never meant to kill anyone”.

Joe Paffey, 21, of Old Southend Road, Southend, is accused of murdering 19-year-old Fabian Kacica, from Southend, during a fight which broke out near the Forum library on May 14 this year.

Aidon Pearce, 21, of Treecot Drive, Leigh, is also accused of being jointly responsible for Fabian’s murder.

Yesterday, at Basildon Crown Court, the jury was shown CCTV footage of the fight as Paffey took to the witness box.

The court previously heard Fabian and his best friend were out socialising with two 15-year-old girls and had stopped at the Forum because one of the girls needed the toilet.

As the girls got out of the car, it is alleged the two defendants began calling out to them, which began to cause tensions between them and Fabian and his friend, which led to the fight.

Paffey told the jury that on that day he had taken a kitchen knife out with him in his bag, but did not realise this until he and Pearce were out drinking.

He said: “I was standing further back from where the car was, but could see that Fabian was acting aggressively towards Aidon.

“I followed the rest of the group over to the car, I wanted to see what was going on and that Aidon was ok. I then saw Fabian start to punch Aidon in the face.

“I ran around the car to get between them.

“I got to Aidon to try and stop the fight, and I pulled out the knife from my bag. At this point I turned back around to face Fabian and his friend. I saw they were coming towards me at a very fast speed.

“I shoved the knife towards them, it was just to scare them, to get them to back off, but I ended up stabbing them instead.”

Paffey told the court he fled the scene after he realised he had stabbed Fabian, running to a friend’s house to clean the knife. He added: “He fell to the floor and I was just in shock, I just ran, I didn’t know what to do.”

Paffey and Pearce both deny murder and the attempted robbery of Fabian’s Ford Fiesta.

The trial continues