McIlveen accused 'blood-stained'

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A teenage girl has told the trial of five people charged with the murder of a Ballymena schoolboy that she saw blood on the shoulder of one defendant.

The witness, who cannot be named because of her age, told the court she saw the blood on Aaron Cavana Wallace, 20, after the attack.

In an interview shown to the court, the girl said she saw Mr Wallace of Moat Road with three other defendants.

The Catholic teenager was killed in an alleyway near Ballymena town centre.

The witness said she saw Mr Wallace standing with three other defendants - 22-year-old Christopher Kerr, of Carnduff Drive, Jeff Colin Lewis, 19, of Rossdale in Ballymena and 20-year-old Mervyn Wilson Moon of Douglas Terrace in Ballymena - in amongst a group of about 10 to 20 people at the leisure centre in the town.

Moon has already pleaded guilty to a charge of murder and will be sentenced at the end of the trial.

She told police she heard Mr Wallace saying "they give somebody a kicking".

During a cross-examination, the witness said she could not be 100% sure Mr Wallace made the remark, but said she had a clear memory of seeing the defendant with blood on his shoulder.

Another witness, 18-year-old Nuala Knowles, told police she had seen Mr Lewis and Mr Wallace in the alleyway where Michael McIlveen was beaten and kicked.

She was at a party and said she got a clear view of Mr Wallace's face through an open garden gate and that she had seen Lewis with his hand up his sleeve, as if he had something up there.

Ms Knowles said she had heard the "screaming of a boy" in the alleyway and that someone had shouted "you're a wee fenian".

The witness also said in her taped police interview that she believed the group who attacked the deceased "needed distractions, so no-one could hear the shouts of them hitting Michael, so it was as if they were trying to cause distractions so no-one could get out (to help)."

During a cross examination by Brian McCartney, who is defending Mr Wallace, Ms Knowles admitted she had not seen his client "trying to beat the back gate in", something she had told police in her interview.

The hearing continues.