Landlord denies taking cash bribe

A pub landlord who was beaten up by singer Amy Winehouse's husband has denied accepting a £200,000 bribe to try to save his attackers from jail.

Blake Fielder-Civil and Michael Brown have admitted perverting the course of justice in relation to the attack in Hoxton, east London, in June 2006.

James King told Snaresbrook Crown Court he never intended to accept money in return for not turning up to court.

The 36-year-old denies conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Mr King told the court he remembered hearing screams of "let's kill him, let's do him" when he was punched and kicked on the ground by the singer's husband and Brown.

The attack happened at about closing time outside a pub Mr King used to run.

Middle men

He underwent surgery to insert a metal plate for a shattered eye socket, another plate was put in his cheekbone and pins now hold his jaw together.

Previously the court heard a deal was struck after the assault, with two other men, Anthony Kelly and James Kennedy, who they contacted to act as middle men.

But Mr King told jurors he had no intention of accepting large sums of money in return for not turning up as a witness for the trial against Fielder-Civil and Brown.

"I was told to look as though I was under duress. I was told to look like someone was pointing a gun at me while I was writing it"
James King

He told the court how he was visited by Kelly, who claimed to represent "a firm of gangsters", and had given him "instructions from above".

On 5 November 2007 - the day Mr King made his withdrawal statement - he said Kelly turned up at his home and told him to copy out a prepared statement while being filmed.

"I was told to look as though I was under duress," Mr King told the court.

"I was told to look like someone was pointing a gun at me while I was writing it.

"I was feeling a lot of anxiety and wanted to go along with what they said just to get them out of the house," he said.

Fielder-Civil, 26, of Camden, north London, and Brown, 25, of Carshalton, south London, have also admitted causing grievous bodily harm.

Kelly, 25, of Chalk Farm, north London, and Kennedy, 19, of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, have pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.

They are all to be sentenced at a later date.

The trial continues.

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