A DEFENDANT in a murder trial was seen wiping blood from a knife outside the Westcliff scrapyard in which a father-of-four was killed, a court has heard.

Hebe Green, of Park Road, Westcliff, gave evidence at Chelmsford Crown Court, yesterday in the trial of Bradley Johnson, 47, of Penn Road, Slough, and Paul Sultana, 45, of Green Lane, Ilford, for the robbery and murder of Steve Woodhouse.

Mr Woodhouse, 30, of Park Road, died in Southend Hospital on June 3, 2015, after being stabbed in the heart the previous day, in his Park Lane scrapyard.

Miss Green, who lives in the same building as the victim, told the jury how she had looked out of her window, which overlooks the yard, when she heard raised voices at about 4.15pm on Tuesday, June 2.

She said: “I looked out the window and saw a scrum. I could hear defensive and angry voices, more than two.

“I looked away for a couple of seconds then when I looked back they were gone, but I heard a male voice saying ‘stay away, just stay away’, but I could not recognise that voice. I did not know Steve’s voice well enough.”

After looking away from the window again, Miss Green returned to see a pale-skinned man, alleged to be Johnson, with an object in his hand.

She added: “He had his arm bent at the elbow and was holding what I thought was a knife, but I was not sure because it was covered in a really dark-looking congealed substance that looked like blood.

“He was stood up, then crouched down and I could see him wiping what I presumed was the knife blade.

“Then he stood up and when he did so he made a folding action with his hands which looked like he was folding a blade away.”

Mr Woodhouse was known to be growing cannabis in his scrapyard, aswell as dealing it, and minutes later Miss Green – who had reported the victim for cannabis cultivation in 2013 – saw the paleskinned man, with a second, darker- skinned man, thought to be Sultana, enter a shed at the rear of Mr Woodhouse’s yard.

She added: “The taller, pale, man had a long bar in his hand as he went in – it appeared to be about two feet long.

“When they came out, the darker skinned man was carrying a black bin bag with some green foliage coming out of it. It was a very vibrant green.”

Miss Green gave evidence from behind screens and during crossexamination Johnson’s barrister, Jane Humphryes QC, questioned the integrity of the prosecution’s key witness – who had sent three extended letters to investigating officers detailing her worries over the past few years.

Miss Humphryes alleged Miss Green had made accusations of gas coming through the floorboards of her flat, that her handbag had been bugged, that she had been followed by previous neighbours and that her mother had been poisoned.

The trial continues.