Man murdered after being stabbed in the back when ‘petty’ feud erupted on the street, court hears

A young man was murdered in the street after a ‘petty and meaningless feud’ erupted, prosecutors allege.

Charlie Elms, 25, died after being stabbed in the back in Oldham.

A 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has gone on trial and denies murdering him.

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“This was the culmination of a petty and meaningless feud that had rumbled on for some time before erupting,” prosecutor Lisa Wilding QC told Manchester Crown Court.

Jurors heard that after a confrontation outside a house in Limeside, Mr Elms was chased and stabbed once to the back after he lost his footing.

Two rival groups had formed after a drunken row escalated into a wider feud, jurors were told.

Mr Elms and the defendant’s allegiances put them ‘at odds’ with each other.

Mr Elms and five other men had arrived in Limeside in a Vauxhall Corsa before a confrontation ensued outside a house, at about 5pm on May 26.

Some of them had weapons, with Mr Elms being armed with a machete.

A car on the drive was smashed, and about 30 seconds later four of the men had got back in the Corsa.

One man came out of the house and threw a bottle towards Mr Elms and the other man, while the defendant also came out of the property.

He was armed with a large kitchen knife, Ms Wilding said.

The Corsa started to drive away without Mr Elms and the other men, leaving them ‘stranded’.

The pair started sprinting behind the car, ‘running for their lives’.

“The only person who pursued them down the road as they ran was this defendant,” Ms Wilding said.

As he ran away Mr Elms lost his footing and fell, dropping the machete. The other man was able to get away.

The defendant caught up and stabbed Mr Elms once to the back, jurors were told.

The wound punctured his lung and caused massive internal bleeding, and Mr Elms was pronounced dead about 45 minutes later.

After the incident the defendant left on a bicycle being driven by a friend.

“The defendant had no need to stab Charlie Elms,” Ms Wilding said.

“He did so out of anger and revenge, and that, we say, is murder.

“He was the aggressor, he hunted down his prey and in one swift and savage blow, brought him down.”

Jurors were told of the background to the feud, with tensions ‘running high’ in the area prior to the incident.

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“It seems that at the heart of these events was a drunken argument that had arisen,” the prosecutor said.

There had been a disagreement between two men, who had previously been friends and were both partners of members of the defendant’s family.

The pair had been together drinking with their partners before one was asked to leave.

It was alleged that weeks before Mr Elms’ death, some windows had been smashed and one woman had been attacked, and that later the defendant and two other men went to the same woman’s house and kicked her door, and shouted for her partner.

“What these events did in this small community was create allegiances and loyalties,” Ms Wilding said.

“Whatever the truth of these background events, it is clear that tensions were running high between various people in the days running up to the killing of Charlie Elms.

“Nevertheless, you may well conclude that for all the threats and shouting, and smashing of windows and low level violence that had gone before, none of it merited the explosion of violence that happened on the afternoon of May 26.”

Proceeding .