AN alleged drug dealer on trial accused of murdering a father over a £500 debt told police his death “had nothing to do with me”.

A Cardiff Crown Court jury heard how John Junior Phillips, formerly of Baird Close, Malpas, Newport, said to detectives he did not kill Anthony Winter.

The prosecution claims the 28-year-old murdered the drug addict after he was lured to the flat Phillips shared with his girlfriend, Lauren Hutchinson, aged 19, at Munnings Drive in the St Julians area of Newport.

It is alleged the 32-year-old, whose body was found in the St Mellons suburb of Cardiff on Thursday, November 22 last year, was tortured in their home before he was later fatally stabbed.

Phillips, a 17-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy, both of Cardiff, all deny murder.

Hutchinson and the girl have both admitted perverting the course of justice.

James Jones, known as ‘Flames’, aged 19, of Bedwas Close, St Mellons, has pleaded guilty to murdering the father-of-one.

Phillips’ police interview was read out to the jury in which the defendant said crack cocaine may have been taken by people in his Munnings Drive home when Mr Winter was there on November 22.

He told the murder squad detectives quizzing him: “When he left my flat he was fine. It ain’t my fault he got killed in Cardiff.”

A police officer asked: “He had a stab wound to his thigh and wounds to his chest, his abdomen, and head. How can you account for that?”

Phillips replied: “When he left me, he was perfectly fine. So it’s nothing to do with me.”

He was asked: “Are you responsible for the death of Anthony Winter?”

The defendant replied: “No. No way. Nothing to do with me. He was perfectly fine like.”

He told the police that Mr Winter and the boy had been play fighting and that the alleged victim had “quite a bit” of blood coming from his nose.

Phillips, the jury was told, was arrested in the early hours of November 23 at Ringwood Place in Newport.

Prosecutor Christopher Clee QC has alleged Mr Winter was savagely beaten, and also attacked with a scissors, in Munnings Drive over the drug debt before he was taken to a wooded area where he was knifed through an artery.

His body was found in a pool of blood near Brookfield Drive in St Mellons just before 7.15am on November 22.

Proceeding.