JURORS in the trial of two men accused of murdering a Newport father were yesterday shown the tree branch allegedly used to beat the alleged victim during the fatal attack.

Apprentice plumbers Kyle Dolling, 20, of Welland Circle, and Christopher Wood, 18, of Trent Road, both Bettws, in Newport, deny the murder of father-of-one Wesley Strawbridge in the city in the early hours of Sunday August 5 last year.

The prosecution told Newport Crown Court that Mr Strawbridge, 25, was subjected to a vicious and sustained attack outside the Sainsbury's store on Shaftesbury Street at around 4.30am that morning.

Wood is alleged to have punched him to the ground, after which Dolling repeatedly beat him to the head with the branch.

The pair then ran off with two companions.

Forensic scientist Christine Rees told the court the tree branch - approximately 60 centimetres long, five cm wide and weighing just over 1lb - was stained at one end with Mr Strawbridge's blood.

Tests on the other end revealed a partial DNA match for Dolling, whose shoes and the lower front right leg of his jeans were spotted with Mr Strawbridge's blood.

These had been airborne droplets, indicating that he was close to the victim at the time he was struck.

Blood found on Wood's t-shirt and jeans was his own.

Mr Strawbridge was found to have died of blunt force trauma to the head, suffering brain injuries, multiple skull and jaw fractures, fractured cheeks and eye sockets.

Dolling and Wood handed themselves in later that Sunday after hearing Mr Strawbridge was dead. Dolling later told police he had only hit Mr Strawbridge once with the branch.

Dolling and Wood allegedly clashed with Mr Strawbridge in Newport city centre earlier that night, following an incident with a man called Ben Gallagher, an old friend of the latter.

The prosecution alleges that Mr Strawbridge headbutted Wood in the face, and an altercation occurred, intermittently flaring up across the city centre with insults and threats, until the final attack.

Leanne Small, who knew Dolling and Wood - the latter being her younger sister's boyfriend - told the court she had met the pair in Upper Dock Street in the early hours of August 5, while waiting for a taxi with her friend Angela Woodruff.

Miss Small stepped in to try to prevent a fight after a man appeared and began hurling insults at Dolling and Wood.

Miss Small and Miss Woodruff, both from Newport, took a taxi home shortly afterwards.

They said as all the men moved off towards the Old Green Roundabout, the shouting between them continued.