Jury sent home for night in trial of cricketer Ben Stokes

The case continued for a sixth day at Bristol Crown Court.

The 27-year-old all-rounder is accused of affray in the Clifton triangle area of Bristol during the early hours of September 25 last year.

He is on trial alongside Ryan Ali, 28, who Stokes is alleged to have knocked out during a fracas near the Mbargo nightclub.

Co-accused Ryan Hale, 27, was acquitted of affray on Thursday.

Stokes and Ali deny a joint charge of affray.

Judge Peter Blair QC, The Recorder of Bristol, told the jury that they would hear closing speeches from Nicholas Corsellis, prosecuting; Gordon Cole QC, defending Stokes; and Anna Midgley, defending Ali.

He would then sum up the case. The judge said that he would invite the jury to retire to consider its verdicts at "some point" after lunch.

Mr Corsellis told the jury that the Crown conceded that at the point Ali had the bottle in his hand Stokes was acting "to defend himself or in defence of another", but then "quickly turned aggressor".

"Even if Mr Stokes has begun using self-defence, he very, very quickly after this became the aggressor, with Mr Hale trying to pacify him together with Mr Ali," he said.

"He was pursuing them into the road, repeatedly punching at them at least six times, with his teammate Alex Hales calling him away 'Stokes... Stokes... stop... stop...', indeed being pulled away twice and on the second time being turned on by Ben Stokes.

"Mr Ali used a bottle as a weapon ... Mr Stokes began in self-defence but then became an aggressor.

"If Mr Stokes was being tried alone, we submit that his behaviour would constitute an affray."

Mr Corsellis said the affray involved several people, lots of shouting and violence, which resulted in two people being knocked unconscious.

"Mr Stokes left Mbargo enraged," he said.

"Something was said as Mr Stokes and Mr Hales passed Lola Lo's and Mr Stokes looked back. Were they heading to a casino? Did Mr Stokes really look into a taxi or was he looking at something else?

"Is this a case of nasty homophobic abuse being thrown? If so, please tell us the details of what was said. No recollection.

"There are aspects of Mr Stokes's case that he has zero recollection of. The cigarette butt, homophobic abuse, the attack on Mr Ali.

"He says he can't say or is it won't say because of what the truth is?"

Mr Corsellis asked the jury to put themselves in the position of being on the Clifton Triangle at 2.30am watching the fight unfold in front of their eyes.

"Would you be quite scared?" he asked.

"This case has a certain subtlety to it which is that we don't know for sure exactly how this all started.

"The best evidence is from Max Wilson, who hears what he hears over a period of minutes, looking out of the window before he starts filming and his impression was that they were clearly all drunk, they were acting like football hooligans and they were building up to a fight.

"Someone shoved someone and it developed into violence.

"If this incident had remained to this extent, everybody had had the maturity to step back and calm down, we wouldn't be here."

Mr Corsellis added: "Because we don't know precisely how this started exactly but Mr Ali had a bottle, the Crown don't say to you that you could be sure that Mr Stokes was acting unlawfully at this stage bearing in mind the threat of the bottle.

"We would not pursue a criminal prosecution on the basis of this.

"We maintain that the footage demonstrates purely and clearly that having been confronted with violence, Mr Stokes then moved from defence of himself and other, way away from self-defence, and began to become the aggressor himself."

Mr Corsellis said Stokes had been rude to Mbargo doorman Andrew Cunningham and was clearly seen looking down his nose and pointing at him.

"To say that he was looking at the night sky, talking to someone more powerful than Mr Cunningham was, I'm afraid, not true," he told the jury.

"In a world and in a way, he has distanced from the admirable career he has. He acted deplorably as the red mist came down and struck with such force that he rendered one person unconscious.

"But it went on from there, notwithstanding the opportunity to calm down, it continued. It is minutes later, in fact one minute and 30 seconds later, that Mr Ali is struck.

"This was a pursued course of retaliation from Mr Stokes."

Mr Corsellis told the jury: "Mr Stokes's defence at this stage is 'I can't remember it but I must have been acting in self-defence'.

"There's a problem with that because it is not for him to prove self-defence but how do you analyse that?

"There's no evidence from him as to what threat he perceived. No evidence that he saw there was a metal bar.

"No evidence he was being verbally threatened by Mr Hale and Mr Ali. There's no foundation to say his self-defence kicked in."

Gordon Cole QC, defending Stokes, said two of Mr Corsellis's comments in his own closing speech left him "massively alarmed" because the prosecution said it did not know what was happening at the start and at the end of the incident.

"If that is the prosecution saying they don't know how, how are you supposed to fill in the gaps?," Mr Cole suggested.

Mr Cole suggested there was evidence to support the view that Mr Hale returned to the scene with the metal pole and that seconds before Stokes knocked out Ali, Ali was about to jump on his back.

"We would say there is evidence to support that happening. Have they proved to you this man was not acting in self-defence?" Mr Coles said.

"When I heard those remarks I was alarmed and we invite you to use your common sense. You are entitled to think about what questions you are left to answer.

"The prosecution are saying they don't know and we saying they ought to."

Mr Cole suggested there has been a "great deal of rowing back" by the prosecution since the trial began last week.

"Is this man getting special treatment because of who he is?" Mr Cole asked. "Is this man being focused on because of who he is?"

He asked the jury to consider all the CCTV footage in the case very closely - including the role of Stokes's international teammate Alex Hales.

Mr Cole said: "You will see Mr Hales on one occasion appearing to kick. So, when the prosecution seeks to hang all the blame at Ben Stokes's door by saying he rendered people unconscious, just look at what happened.

"Think about kicks and stamps. There's no evidence before you - and I'm not suggesting for one minute that you should guess - but you can infer from what you know of injuries that were sustained.

"Sustained perhaps by Alex Hales's intervention? Blows, kicks and or stamps to the head area.

"Does it follow that all of these injuries are properly attributed to Ben Stokes? We say no. We say that the evidence is ambiguous. We say how do you resolve that?"

Mr Cole went on: "The fact is that, so far as publicity is concerned, I have no idea whether you have seen anything on the news.

"I have no idea that when, about a year ago, this first hit the papers and The Sun footage was shown, I have no idea whether any of you - I suspect most people in the country probably saw it.

"I'm very concerned that everything said in evidence is being rehearsed in the news. National news, local news.

"It is very, very difficult to avoid that. There's almost one trial going on outside of this court.

"But the important trial is going on inside of this court.

"I think I am beginning to defend the press ... it is impossible to actually describe every nuance, every single bit of evidence, every inference that you are being asked to consider.

"It is difficult to report every detail. The important trial is the trial that is going on in here."

Anna Midgley, representing Ali, told the jury: "Of course, watching himself brandishing a bottle makes him feel regret and embarrassment, let alone when the world is watching.

"But regret for how he behaved is a different question as to whether he has committed a criminal offence."

Miss Midgley said her client's use of the bottle was captured on just five seconds of footage filmed by student Max Wilson from his bedroom window.

She insisted that Ali, who works for the emergency services, acted in response to a threat when he brandished the beer bottle he was holding.

"He was drinking from it," she told the jury.

"He didn't arm himself but there came a time when he used it because he was threatened."

Miss Midgley told the jury that Ryan Hale had been acquitted of affray, despite bringing a metal bar to the scene.

Referring to Mr Hale and Mr Hales, she told the jury: "There's no special law that says bottles are not allowed but iron bars and kicking with your feet is."

She questioned whether Ali had made a "determined effort" to make contact with the bottle, and said he had not smashed it before doing so.

"Does he really whack people with the bottle?" she asked, adding that the bottle did not smash on impact with Mr Barry's shoulder.

Ali had not been aware that it was Mr Barry who reached across him, she said.

Miss Midgley said there may have been a "misunderstanding" that caused violence to erupt between Stokes, Ali, Mr Hale and Mr Hales.

"The prosecution says they don't know how the incident started," she told the jury.

"We don't have footage of the start of the incident. You can't disprove the position that what Ryan Ali says is correct, that he was responding to a threat from others.

"The evidence that you have, I say, makes it likely that his case is right."

The jury in the trial --of Ben Stokes will begin their deliberations at 10am tomorrow, Judge Peter Blair QC said.

After summing up the evidence in the case he sent them home for the night.