Three convicted over death of army veteran

A man and two women have been convicted of manslaughter over the death of an army veteran who suffered fatal head injuries after being punched to the ground during a night out.

Martin Chadburn, 53, who was an employee of the Hull 4 Heroes charity, was taken to hospital after the incident in the city's Queen Victoria Square in the early hours of 19 April. He died two days later.

Following a trial at Hull Crown Court, Lukasz Matusiak, 27, Britney Naylor, 20, and Shaytoyia Farrow, 21, were found guilty of manslaughter but cleared of murder. They are due to be sentenced on 27 November.

Two other defendants, Bethany Naylor, 20, and Kristjan Suits, 35, were found not guilty of manslaughter.

Prosecutor David Brooke told jurors at the start of the trial Chadburn suffered "several blows to the head" during the violence, including being stamped on by one of the women. The court heard he died from a fatal brain bleed caused by "a blow or several blows to the head".

The incident began at about 03:30 BST when Chadburn and friend Steven Grayburn left the Star pub on Carr Lane. A witness to the start of the altercation said she had overheard Grayburn make remarks that were "racist in nature" towards Naylor, Naylor and Farrow.

One of the defendants, Bethany Naylor, then appeared to burn Grayburn on the back of his neck with a cigarette. A video of the incident, which was captured on Farrow's phone, was recovered by police.

The court heard Naylor said words to the effect of "I'm not having that" after being told about further remarks from Grayburn, and then went after him, hitting him several times.

CCTV played in court showed the disorder escalating, with Suits and Matusiak, who had been standing at a bus stop, becoming involved.

Chadburn was seen hitting Britney Naylor, before being punched several times by Matusiak.

Farrow was then seen stamping on Chadburn as he lay on the floor.

Brooke told the jury that "each of the defendants will be claiming that they were acting in lawful self defence, either of themselves or another".

However, he added: "Not only are all involved in directly attacking or assisting - it's also plainly unlawful group violence."

Matusiak's defence barrister, Charlotte Baines, rejected any suggestion of a joint enterprise.

She said the Crown was wrongly trying to link together "unconnected groups" as part of a coordinated attack.

Matusiak and Suits only became involved because they believed they were witnessing "two older, larger men attacking young women", and their actions were an instinctive attempt to protect the women, she told the jury.

"If it were not for the behaviour towards the females, Suits and Matusiak would have remained watching from the bus stop," she added.

Matusiak, who moved to England from Poland when he was younger, accepted it was a punch from him that caused Chadburn to go to the ground, but denied intending to kill him or cause really serious harm, saying the force used was to "get him away from the girls and myself".

"No one expected him to die, no one wanted him to die," he said.

Britney Naylor told the court she tried to "diffuse the situation" and was "ushering" Chadburn away before he allegedly hit her. Naylor claimed Chadburn punched her against a shutter, repeatedly struck her, and left her with facial bruising and a fractured nose.

"I didn't want anything to happen to that guy, he didn't deserve to die, it hurt me a lot," she said.

Farrow said she saw Britney being hit and thrown to the floor.

Denying punching Chadburn, she said: "I was trying to get him off of Britney."

She admitted kicking Chadburn while he was on the floor, telling jurors: "I was really upset and I was acting out of emotions in the heat of the moment because I'd seen what happened to Britney. It wasn't a thing where I wanted to hurt him, I was just upset."

Following the prosecution evidence, Judge John Thackray directed the jury to consider only the manslaughter charge for Bethany Naylor and Suits.

He said he was "not satisfied" that the CCTV footage shown could prove the defendants had intended to cause grievous bodily harm during the attack.

Giving evidence, Bethany Naylor said she became "agitated" after allegedly being racially abused by Steven Grayburn, whom she then assaulted.

She told the court she had "no issue" with Chadburn and denied attacking him.

Suits, who moved to the UK from Estonia as a child, told the court he heard the men shouting racist abuse and felt "very disgusted" by the language used.

He said he intervened after seeing "the guy punch the girl in the face and she started screaming".

"I thought maybe I could separate the fight and help them," he said.

Suits denied punching, striking or kicking Chadburn at any stage.

Judge John Thackray KC adjourned sentencing to allow time for the completion of pre-sentence reports.

Listen to highlights fromHull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North.

Download the BBC News app from the App Storefor iPhone and iPad orGoogle Play for Android devices