A TEENAGER accused of murdering his friend in a vicious attack confessed to neighbours hours after the killing, a jury heard.

Reece Gullon told a trial at Newcastle Crown Court today that Kieran Adey admitted kicking Mark Shaw in the face with steel toe-capped boots, beating him with a pool cue and stabbing him with a knife.

The 29-year-old’s brutal death, at his home on Pine Street, in Grange Villa, near Chester-le-Street, before Christmas last year, stunned the former mining community.

The jury heard Adey, who was 18 at the time, and lived on nearby Queen Street, asked Mr Gullon “for a word” while he was outside having a cigarette at his former partner’s house.

Mr Adey had been outside his own girlfriend’s house, with 19-year-old Zoe Warren, from Washington, who is also charged with murder.

Mr Gullon said: “He said he had kicked him, choked, him, tied him up, stabbed him and ‘left him looking like the elephant man’.

“He said he had used a dog leader to strangle him and hit him with a pool cue. He said that the girl with the colours in her hair had also used the pool cue. He said he had tied a leather belt around his neck.”

Mr Gullon said Adey, who appeared under the influence of drink and drugs, also admitted hiding items used in the attack, which happened in the early hours of Saturday, December 17.

Mr Gullon, who spoke to him at around 11.30am, said: “He appeared to be in a world of his own.

“He said he had picked up the knife and chucked it in a river in the dene.

“I was in shock. I could not believe it had happened. I did not want to believe it had happened.

“He said ‘we have done what we have done and we have left him looking like the elephant man’.”

Mr Shaw’s body was found by police on his bed after the alarm was raised at around 6pm that day.

A post mortem found he died from a single stab wound, but the pathologist found over 80 injuries to his body.

The jury also heard from Joseph Dowson, who lives nearby and was visited by Adey, Warren and Ricky Willas at around midnight.

Adey had asked if he could wash his hands.

Mr Dowson said: “They were covered in blood. The majority of his knuckles were cut and grazed. He said he had had a fight and given someone a good kicking.”

The jury was told, hours before his murder, Mark Shaw almost died from a heroin overdose only to have his life saved by paramedics summoned by Miss Warren.

Miss Warren, of Hexham, Washington, and Mr Adey, of Queen Street, Grange Villa, both deny murder.

Miss Warren denies a second charge of witness intimidation.

The trial continues.