A 16-year-old accused of murdering a day searched on the internet for “stabbing in Laindon” and “consequences of accidentally killing someone” hours after the fatal attack, a court heard.

James Gibbons, 34, was yards from his home in Iris Mews in Laindon, Essex on May 2 when he was stabbed.

A 16-year-old boy is accused of murdering him by stabbing him four times in the abdomen.

Prosecutor, Simon Taylor QC, revealed on the second day of the trial yesterday that the defendant, searched on the internet for “stabbing in Laindon” and “consequences of accidentally killing someone” in the early hours of May 3.

He said a youth heard the defendant say, in a phone call on loudspeaker to another youth: “I chinged him 25 times”.

“According to (the youth, the defendant) was laughing as he said it,” said Mr Taylor.

He added that the youth’s understanding was that “chinged”

meant stabbed.

The defendant was arrested at his home address at 5.35am on May 3 and when interviewed by police said that all he knew about the incident was what officers had told him, Mr Taylor said.

In a second interview he was told that two youths had said he “was responsible” for the incident.

He then gave no comment on the advice of a solicitor, Mr Taylor said.

The prosecutor said the defendant “willingly involved himself in violence against James Gibbons when there was no need to do so”.

He said that CCTV showed that Mr Gibbons was “surrounded by youths yards from his home address”.

“While it could be said James Gibbons was standing his ground and getting in the face of the youths he was no threat to them and yet he died at (the defendant’s) hands,” said Mr Taylor.

He said that “whether it was to appear a big man in front of the females and his near peers...

(the defendant) was intent on violence”.

He said the defendant ran off to get a weapon then came back and used it.

“Deliberately securing a weapon, then returning to the scene, then stabbing a man not once, not twice but four times, we say can only have been accompanied by an intent to cause really serious harm,” Mr Taylor said. “That’s why the Crown say (the defendant’s) guilty of murder.”

The youth claims he acted in self-defence. The trial continues.