A MAN high on a cocktail of drugs killed a fellow partygoer in a brutal, sustained attack, a court heard this week.
Sam Martin, 26, repeatedly kicked and punched Anton Jardin in the head, causing him to collapse and die almost immediately, the jury was told.
Fuelled by a combination of alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and Diazepam, Martin is said to have launched a frenzied attack on Mr Jardin in the garden of a house party, on Three Mile Hill in Chelmsford, close to where the V Festival was being held in August last year.
Mr Jardin, a 39-year-old graphic designer, was left with fatal injuries.
"The punches and the kicks delivered in repeated succession were powerful and were, we say, aimed with care at the head and the neck and designed to cause at the very least, serious harm," prosecutor Andrew Jackson told Chelmsford Crown Court.
"The defendant, aggressive and violent, fuelled by a cocktail of drink and drugs, decided to attack and kill Mr Jardin.
"It was needless, it was mindless and it was cowardly," he added.
Earlier in the evening, Mr Jardin had been in an argument with Martin's boss, Clint Spearpoint, and it was then, as Mr Jardin was against the wall and "unprotected", that Martin, who is charged with murder, launched his assault.
Chloe Lambert, who witnessed the attack, told how she and others were "screaming for it to stop," as Martin "kneed or kicked the victim in the head."
The trial continues.
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