A CRACK cocaine addict has told of his horror at seeing a friend killed during a fight between two rivals dealers at his home. 

James Hobbs said he broke up the fight in which Joseph Pearce was stabbed to death by Dominic Lacey and only realised he was injured when he collapsed on the floor. 

Hobbs and Lacey had just returned to his flat in Burnham-on-Sea from a trip to Bristol to bulk buy drugs when Pearce and two other men burst in and attacked them. 

Lacey killed 40-year-old Mr Pearce with a single stab wound to his heart and beat off the others with a baseball bat, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Hobbs and his girlfriend Victoria Leonard called an ambulance but as soon as a paramedic arrived, he allegedly drove Lacey away from the scene with the drugs.

He took him to a taxi office in Weston-super-Mare from where Lacey took a cab back to his home in Patchway, Bristol, the court heard. 

Lacey, aged 22, of Newham Place, Patchway, has admitted the manslaughter of Mr Pearce and will be sentenced later this week. 

Hobbs, aged 44, of Churchill Close, Burnham, denies assisting an offender by driving Lacey away from the scene. He says he did not realise the police were looking for Lacey. 

The prosecution say he helped him escape justice at a time when he knew the police were about to come and arrest him after the stabbing on July 9, 2017. 

Hobbs told the jury he was a heroin and crack addict at the time who was also dealing on a small scale in partnership with Lacey, who was operating from the flat in Churchill Close, Burnham. 

He also knew Pearce, who he had both bought and sold drugs from and to in the past, but did not know he planned to come to his house on the night of the stabbing. 

He said: "I heard the doorbell and saw Joe (Pearce) through the peephole. I could not particularly see anyone else and thought it was okay. I opened the door and the next thing I knew they pushed me inside and I fell into the bedroom. 

"I did not know where Victoria was. I got up to make sure she was all right. I went into the front room and chucked myself into the melee to split it up. 

"I saw Lacey with a bat going whack, whack, and hitting at least two other geezers. There were at least two or three, including Joe. There was a big black fellow. He was huge. He looked ashen, as if something had really happened." 

He said the other men left and Pearce collapsed on the floor of the bedroom. He and Victoria called an ambulance and he stayed until the first paramedic arrived. 

He said: "We were walking around with our heads in our hands. We did not know what we were doing or what was going on. I had not seen Lacey stabbing Joe. 

"Lacey was saying 'get me out of here please, please’. I was in a state of shock. I just wanted to get him out of there. I did not want to impede an investigation. It was something for him to face up to further down the line. 

"My head was shot. It still is. I can't escape this rubbish. I just could not believe it. I did not believe Lacey was guilty of a criminal offence when I drove him away. 

"I was not trying to interfere with the police. I did not know what had occurred. It was madness." 

Hobbs said he and Lacey took the drugs which they had been planning to sell with them and he hid some of them inside his body before he went back to Burnham, where he was arrested almost three hours later.

The trial continues.