Jodie Chesney Murder Suspect Refused To Help Police, Court Hears

Petrovic said Man A and B were gone up to five minutes and “seemed calm” when they returned.

He said: “There was nothing unusual about their behaviour. Nothing about them made me suspicious. I did not see either of them carrying anything.

“My friend and I were told that Man A was collecting money and drugs.”

After dropping the two men off, Petrovic claimed a black male had pulled a knife to his throat and snatched his car keys.

He said: “The next day I heard that a girl had been stabbed in Harold Hill. I hoped it had nothing to do with why I was in the area with Man A and Man B.”

Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC told jurors: “You may recall Petrovic’s claim to have been ‘deeply saddened’ by Jodie’s death. Nonetheless, Petrovic was not willing to help the police.

“He continued to make no comment until the police gave up asking questions.”

Petrovic, Svenson Ong-a-kwie, 19, and two youths, aged 16 and 17, from Barking and Romford, deny murder.

Aylett told jurors that police went to arrest Ong-a-Kwie at the hostel where he was living and found a knife on top of a fridge in his room.

The prosecutor suggested the murder weapon itself may have been disposed of but the presence of another blade was “not without significance”.

Officers continued their search for Ong-a-Kwie at another address in Dagenham, jurors heard.

He was apprehended after climbing out of a first floor window and falling through the roof of a lean-to, Aylett said.

When he was arrested, the defendant allegedly told police: “Murder? I ain’t done a murder.”

The 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be named because of his age, was also arrested in the back garden of the house.