Policeman ‘screamed for help’ in fatal riots assault

Using the pseudonym John Brown and with his voice distorted by a modulator to protect his identity, the witness described how he saw the killing on the estate in Tottenham, north London, on October 6 1985.

He explained that he had seen Nicky Jacobs, 45, stabbing Pc Blakelock with a machete between two and four times as the frenzied mob took part in a “free for all”.

Asked by Richard Whittam QC, for the prosecution, what the officer was doing during the attack, Mr Brown said: “What I saw, he was trying to curl up into a ball, I suppose to protect himself somehow.

“Did he say anything?” Mr Whittam asked.

“I just heard heard screams of ‘help, help, help’.”

Mr Brown, a former member of the Park Lane Boys gang, who accepted a caution for assaulting his partner in 2010, said Jacobs used a machete with a 12-inch blade during the attack.

“He was attacking the officer and hit him with a couple of blows on his body, stabbing up and down with the machete,” he said.

Afterwards Mr Brown saw a gash on the officer’s neck and blows on his body, he said.

He told the jury that he himself had kicked the officer some 10 times after he went to the ground.

Asked why, he said: “Looking back on it I don’t know. It was the excitement of the situation, I just rushed forward and kicked him about ten times.”

The witness said he had been paid a £5,000 reward by the police after giving a statement during a renewed police investigation into the killing in 1993.

He said he had heard others say that Jacobs was going round saying he was going to “give an officer a hiding if he got the opportunity, or do some damage”.

In cross-examination, defence barrister Courtenay Griffiths accused him of “joining heads together” with another key witness referred to in court as Rhodes Levin to point the finger at an “easy target”.

“Your motivation for coming forward to give this lying account is money, pure and simple, isn’t it?” Mr Griffiths asked.

“No, definitely not,” Mr Brown replied.

Jacobs denies murder and the case continues.