The murder trial has opened into the case of 19 year old Joshua Delbono who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 16 year old Charley Bates from Radstock.

Bristol Crown Court heard opening submissions from the prosecution counsel Adam Vaitilingam KC who told the jury the incident had happened in a 'moment of minutes' on the afternoon of July 31, 2022.

"Charley had been out that afternoon with a group of his friends, seven of them altogether, all teenagers. They were hanging out, smoking and chatting in Radstock at the library car park. A little after 6.30pm two cars drove into the car park together.

"Two young men were in the first car. In the second were the defendant and his girlfriend. It seems that Charley knew at least one of the two young men who were in the first of those two cars. There was some history of bad feeling between them. Charley went over to speak to them, but the talking then turned into a fight. The fight started as a one on one fist fight... but at some point during the fight, the defendant got out of his car. He had a knife and he walked over to where the fight was going on and stabbed Charley several times, including in the chest. His group then drove off in their two cars. It had been less than five minutes since they had arrived at the scene. "

Charley's friends and other passers by called 999 and paramedics quickly attended, but they were unable to save his life. He was pronounced dead at 7.15pm, a home office pathologist later telling the court that he died due to an 11 cm puncture wound to the heart.

Later that night, around 12.45am, the defendant's mother in Frome called the police to tell them her son had killed someone. She put her son on the phone who told officers that the boys in Charley's group had attacked his friend who had been in the first car. He said he had got out of the car and got involved to help that friend of his. He admitted that he had stabbed someone but denied that he intended to cause him serious injury. He said that he had got out of his car to intervene in a fight."

The court was told that there was CCTV of Delbono arriving later at Shearwater Lake where it is alleged he got rid of the knife used in the alleged murder and where, on photos on his girlfriend's phone, he was seen burning some of his clothes.

Bristol Crown Court heard from an officer from the Major Crime Investigation unit, Deborah Sek, who guided the jury through the available CCTV, and told them the footage of the actual incident was not available because the cameras at the back of the library were not working. Explaining images shown to the jury, of five men and seven women: "If there is other information available we use that, these images(from a mobile phone) appear to show them burning clothing, and wearing different clothes than (Delbono) was wearing in Budgens. "

Within the trial Delbono admitted that he had gone to the car park in Radstock after visiting a car wash at the Budgens store in Frome and going to the car park where Charley and his friends were because he was "bored" .

The Crown Court heard from the first eye witness about the moments when a casual meet up in the library car park in Radstock, and hanging around at the benches, turned into something very different. In video evidence the court heard: "Charley started laughing so we thought everything was fine.. then a fight broke out ...I was just shouting and screaming and trying to get them to stop, then we just turned around and saw Charley lying face down. We realised something really bad had happened. That's when we called the ambulance. A police car turned up after six or seven minutes and an officer tried to give him resuscitation."

At a later police interview, in November 2022, the same witness said that Charley had a knife in his bag, but he did not take it down from the benches when the two cars arrived in the library car park. The witness said they did not see what happened to the bag after the incident.

Joshua Delbono of Slipps Close in Frome has pleased not guilty to the murder of Charley Bates on July 31 2022. The trial is expected to last three weeks.