A teenager who stabbed a man to death in Skipton’s Aireville Park said he was defending himself after his victim pointed a knife at him and tried to steal his drug dealing cash.

Brooklyn Bell told a jury at Bradford Crown Court he was “scared and intimidated” by Simon McMinn after he shouted loudly at him and threatened him.

Bell, 19, of Parkwood Rise, Keighley, denies murdering Mr McMinn, 44, in a wooded area of the park on the evening on July 28 last year.

Today, he told the court he took the train from Keighley with around £400 of heroin and crack cocaine to sell to addicts in Skipton.

He said he inadvertently approached a group of younger males he thought were his own age and asked them if they wanted any sniff.

Bell said he did not have any cocaine powder on him but his drugs boss was “building a coke line” in Skipton so he wanted to see if they were interested. They weren’t and he walked away.

He said he apologised after receiving a complaint about his mistake.

He then got an order for the drugs he was carrying and met Mr McMinn and his friend in a wooded area at the top end of the park.

Bell said Mr McMinn shouted at him and threatened him.

“I was intimidated by him. He was a lot bigger than me,” he said.

He said that Mr McMinn, who the jury heard was 17 stone, produced a knife and point-ed it at him while trying to pick up banknotes that had fallen from Bell’s bag.

Bell said he punched Mr McMinn in the face and he dropped up the knife.

When Mr McMinn punched him again, he stabbed him.

“I was protecting myself,” he said.

“The first time I stabbed him it had no effect on him so that’s why I stabbed him again.”

The jury has heard that Mr McMinn was stabbed three times, once in the shoulder and twice in the back.

“I was defending myself. I was scared of this guy,” Bell stated.

He thought that if Mr McMinn had picked up the knife he would have stabbed him.

Bell said he was “scared for his life.”

“I didn’t know him but I didn’t want to kill him; I didn’t mean to kill him,” he told the jury.

He said he ran away after gathering up as much of the dropped money as he could quickly find.

He went to Keighley and then by train Huddersfield, handing himself into the police there three days later.

Bell said he had family in Huddersfield and had been to school in the town.

He went to Huddersfield Police Station after being told that the police were looking for him in Keighley and Huddersfield.

The court has heard that he was on police bail at the time for stabbing a man in Bournemouth in August, 2019.

The 54-year-old man suffered a collapsed lung after Bell stabbed him three times in the back with a flick knife he had in his pocket.

He told the jury he was angry after the man offended him near The Prom Diner on the seafront.

Bell said he saw him again the same day after taking a zig-zag path to a bus shelter to do a drug deal.

He ran up behind him in an alleyway and stabbed him three times in what he agreed was a revenge attack.

Afterwards, Bell tapped lyrics into his phone that said: “Man got splashing. I left that crime scene happy.”

The jury has been told that he has pleaded guilty to an offence of wounding with intent in relation to that incident.

Cross-examined by John Elvidge QC, for the Crown, Bell said he wasn’t angry with Mr McMinn, he was defending himself.

“The Skipton situation was completely different from the Bournemouth situation,” he said.

Bell said he carried a knife in Bournemouth but not in Skipton.

He said of Mr McMinn: “He was the one that was angry and he was the one that had a knife.”

Mr McMinn received stab wounds to his back because he was swinging punches at him with his head down, Bell told the jury.

The trial continues.