Car murder suspect: ‘I was in wrong gear’
A machine operator accused of using his car to murder a pedestrian outside a massage parlour has told a jury he accidentally selected reverse gear and was unaware he had hit anyone.
Tony Green told jurors he panicked and did not realise he was going backwards at around 18mph until he hit a signpost which caused Shkelzen Taka “horrific” fatal head injuries.
A trial at Birmingham Crown Court has been shown CCTV footage of Green’s Skoda Octavia reversing onto a pavement in the early hours of Boxing Day last year, killing Mr Taka almost instantly.
Green, 27, of Suffield Grove, Birmingham, denies murdering Mr Taka after an “interaction” outside a massage parlour which they had both visited in Coton Lane, Erdington.
Giving evidence on the fifth day of his trial, Green denied that he had intended to cause really serious harm or to kill Mr Taka.
Rejecting suggestions from prosecutor Adrian Keeling QC that he had known Mr Taka was on the pavement and knew he had swung a metal bar towards his car, Green told the jury: “The whole incident was a minute and six seconds.”
Claiming he had unwittingly driven forwards in third gear, and then accidentally reversed, Green told the jury: “I was in the wrong gear.”
“The car came to a judder, I didn’t want to stall, the engine was juddering.
“That’s why I braked, to put it into gear.
“It happened in seconds.”
Mr Keeling asked Green: “It’s then your case that you put the car into reverse by accident.
“How on earth is it that that was done by accident?”
Green replied: “I was panicking.
“I didn’t know I was in reverse.”
After Green rejected claims that he was not telling the truth to the court, he was asked if he was saying that, even during 1.7 seconds in which he covered 14 metres, he was “completely oblivious” to the fact he was going backwards.
Green answered: “By the time I was in reverse I had hit the lamp post within seconds, literally.
“My foot was down all the way.”
Mr Keeling then asked Green to explain how his car had changed direction while going backwards to mount the pavement.
Green responded: “The slightest touch with the steering wheel.
“I wasn’t expecting to be in reverse. I assumed I was in first. I wasn’t aiming for no one."
Invited to comment on whether his car being found burnt-out hours later was coincidental bad luck, Green said: “Yeah.”
Mr Keeling then said: “The truth, Mr Green, is this - for whatever reason, whether you got angry, lost your temper, had been drinking or whatever... you quite deliberately drove that car at Mr Taka in reverse.”
Green, a former recycling centre worker, answered: “No."
The trial continues.
