Murder accused who fatally punched Staffordshire pub owner in bar denies man helped him hide

A man who fatally punched a pub owner in the neck on a bar dancefloor has denied another member of his group tried to help him evade police in the hours after the attack.

Billy Allison, 36, fled the Ricco and Loren bar in Lichfield with a friend after punching 44-year-old Matthew O’Gara, who later died from his injuries, and Adam Cooper, 62, who was with the victim, a trial at Stafford Crown Court heard.

Prosecutors allege Allison delivered a “very, very hard” punch with the “stance and skill of an experienced fighter” to Mr O’Gara on the night of May 24 this year.

He also left Mr Cooper with a fractured eye socket and nose after punching him.

Allison, of Cropthorne Road in Shirley, Solihull, West Midlands, denies Mr O’Gara’s murder and section 18 grievous bodily harm with intent to Mr Cooper, but admits alternative charges of manslaughter and inflicting grievous bodily harm contrary to section 20.

As Mr O’Gara lay unconscious on the floor receiving care from bar staff and members of the public Allison, who had been out with his girlfriend Charlotte Dean and friends Ryan Bridge and Ben Cullen and their partners, was seen on CCTV leaving the premises through a back gate.

After leaving the bar with Mr Cullen, the pair were seen on camera swapping shirts in the street, with Allison covering his face at one point.

Allison and Mr Cullen were next seen on CCTV at around 1am in parkland on the edge of the city centre before later reappearing at the Cathedral Hotel in Beacon Street, where Mr Cullen had been booked to stay the night.

The defendant, who had checked in to stay at a B&B elsewhere in Lichfield, was later arrested from Mr Cullen’s room, still wearing his shirt.

Police body-worn camera footage of the arrest shown to the jury saw Allison say to officers, “tell me he’s okay mate”, before Mr Cullen asks how police knew the defendant was there.

“This had been the plan, hadn’t it, to hide out at the Cathedral Hotel?”, prosecution counsel Timothy Hannam KC asked the defendant.

He added: “Had you agreed a plan with the man who had been harbouring you in his hotel bedroom?”

Allison, who denied he was friends with Mr Cullen, describing him as an acquaintance he knew through Mr Bridge, said he was not hiding and had not discussed with Mr Cullen that his hotel room was somewhere he could “stay out of the reach of police”.

Mr Hannam said: “Ben Cullen is more than a passing acquaintance, isn’t he?

“He’s someone who advised you to go no comment when you were arrested… You spent hours in his company planning all of that.”

Allison said no.

Mr Hannam asked the defendant why Mr Cullen had followed him out of Ricco and Loren after the fatal incident.

“That’s a question you would have to ask him, I don’t know why he followed me,” Allison said.

The defendant said an eyewitness’s account from the bar that Mr Cullen had said the victim had “come at” Allison before he was punched was “debateable”.

Mr Hannam said: “He was giving an excuse for your behaviour… Mr Cullen was trying to cover for you at that point, wasn’t he?

“He was lying for you, wasn’t he?”

Allison said: “I can’t answer for him.”

Asked why Allison put Mr Cullen’s top over his face, he said: “I think I was trying to hide my identity”, but could not recall what was said between the pair before that happened.

Explaining why he had gone to Mr Cullen’s hotel, the defendant said he used his phone to try and work out how to get back to his own room but was too drunk to find it and “gave up”.

He denied having planned to stay elsewhere to avoid being found by police who were looking for him, telling Mr Hannam: “I couldn’t find (my hotel).

“I wouldn’t leave my £30,000 car there and my girlfriend and my belongings in my room.

“I wouldn’t just abandon my girlfriend.”

Allison also admitted he lied to police when he was first arrested by telling officers had lost his phone while running away from the scene.

It was then found in a single bed he had been sharing with his partner in Mr Cullen’s room, but he refused to tell police the Pin and it has never been accessed.

Allison told the jury he lied because he had recently spent around £1,500 on the phone and it had “personal” things on there he did not want officers to see.

Asked why he did not phone the police himself after he left the bar, Allison said he thought about it but decided not to.

He said: “I was scared… I’d been informed Mr O’Gara was in a pretty bad condition and I was scared and upset.”

Mr Hannam said: “You weren’t concerned about him, you were concerned about you, weren’t you?”

The defendant replied: “I was very concerned… I was also concerned about my family and how it would affect them, yes.”

The trial continues.