Damien McEvoy, 49, and Daniel Coles, 24, have denied trying to rob a Royal Marine last September and told Plymouth Crown Court that they were simply attempting to protect a prostitute he was having sex with in the street.
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Jake Keogh, the Royal Marine, has said that the two men cornered him in the street near his base at Stonehouse Barrack when he was drunk and lost, and claimed that he never paid the woman for sex.
Coles pleaded not guilty and told the court he never had a knife that night, and added that he and McEvoy were in Stonehouse when they stumbled upon his prostitute friend. He elaborated that he followed a distance behind as the woman walked away with Keogh, and she allegedly asked Coles to stay with her, “because she felt uncomfortable”.
According to Coles, he saw the prostitute on her knees in front of the marine, and heard McEvoy, who was closer to the couple, “getting angry” and calling Keogh a “deviant”.
“I chased him away at that point. McEvoy said get him, so I chased him”, Coles said, adding that there was no physical contact between him and Keogh.
McEvoy, in turn, told the court that he expected the prostitute to share her payment with them so that they could buy crack cocaine.
“Something in me just exploded. I called him all the names under the sun and chased him up the road with the intention of sticking my foot up his arse. Why would I rob a Royal Marine near Stonehouse Barracks in the most CCTV-d area of Britain when I could go and rob a drug dealer who is never going to pick up the phone to the police? I am not stupid”, McEvoy said, while denying holding a syringe.
