A man who denies the murder of Abdikarim Hassan, 18, in February 2018 claims he “disassociated himself” from the group who stabbed the teenager in the seconds before the incident.

Anuoluwa Temenu, 20, is charged with the murder of Mr Hassan, who was found fatally wounded in the evening of February 20 that year.

A lawyer representing Temenu, from the Colville estate in Hackney, made the case that his client was "stunned by the circumstances" after men in the silver BMW he was travelling began to act violently.

The first incident saw two men, Temenu claims the car's driver and front seat passenger, stopped, got out and chased down Hamza Syed and Yusuf Ahmed in Aldenham Street before returning to the vehicle with a "large knife that appeared to be wet with blood" earlier that evening.

Defence barrister Nick Rhodes said after this first attack, Temenu "was sat in the back of the car being told 'it's none of your business'".

He added those who did take part in the violence "trusted him to keep his mouth shut" and that Temenu's friend Rashaun Akers-Gaspard, who Temenu accepted he was with that night "exerted pressure" on him and told him to "be easy" when he was shocked by the bloody knife.

Mr Rhodes said Temenu thought he was on the way to the Peckwater Estate for a vigil in memory of his friend Lewis Blackman, who had been murdered just days earlier.

He reminded the jury Temenu had told them he "did not look back" and walked away from the BMW in the moments before Mr Hassan was killed.

"That whatever happened to [Abdikarim Hassan] happened to him as Temenu walked away does not make Temenu guilty of murder," he said.

"He disassociated himself from what the others in the car were doing."

The defence barrister went on to tell the jury Temenu had refused to name the other men in the BMW out of fear "he might suffer revenge".

The prosecution case is that Temenu is "a candidate" for one of the two men who attacked Mr Syed and Mr Ahmed and also a "candidate" for having taken part in the murder of Mr Hassan.

Also on trial is Tottenham man Godwin Lunghy, 19, who is accused of the murder of Sadiq Mohammed, 20, in Maldon Road later that evening.

The trial continues.