Gordon Gault: Accused teen's rap 'wasn't celebrating' boy's death

A teenager who fatally stabbed a 14-year-old rival said a rap written afterwards "wasn't celebrating" the boy's death.

Gordon Gault died in hospital six days after being wounded by a machete in Newcastle in November 2022.

Carlos Neto, 18, accepts he stabbed Gordon but denies murder. Five others aged 16 to 18 also deny murder.

Mr Neto told Newcastle Crown Court his subsequent rap was "exaggeration" as "people like violent music".

Jurors have heard the attack on 9 November was part of a "beef" between rival groups of youths involving "tit-for-tat violence" that had started with rap videos mocking each other.

Two of the defendants, aged 16 and 17, are unable to be identified because of their age, but the others who are all 18 are:

Prosecutors said the defendants, who were linked to the Benwell area, went to Elswick Park to exact revenge on a rival after Mr Mbala was attacked earlier in the day, with the beating filmed and shared on social media.

Mr Neto said he was part of just a "music group" and they had gone to Elswick so they could make a video "showing off" about being in their rivals' territory and remove the "humiliation" of the attack on Mr Mbala.

He said he had a machete to "scare off any would-be attacker" having previously been stabbed.

Mr Neto claimed he saw Gordon, who was on the back of a bike, coming at him with what he thought was a machete so he swung his blade to stop the attack, in doing so hitting Gordon's arm.

Mr Neto also accepted injuring a 17-year-old boy with the machete, but he and the five others deny wounding the youth.

Jonathan Sandiford KC read lyrics to jurors written by Mr Neto in the weeks and months after the attack.

They included references to Gordon being killed and how Mr Neto had done it.

Mr Sandiford asked Mr Neto several times if the youth was "revelling" in the fact he had killed someone, to which the teenager repeatedly replied "no" and said: "I wasn't celebrating."

Mr Neto, who previously said he was an aspiring drill rapper, said: "It was just violent music, people enjoy violent music so I make it so people enjoy my music."

He had also written lyrics about loving being a "psychopath", the court heard.

"It's fictional to make people think I'm a violent person and ready to hurt people but I'm not," Mr Neto said.

He said messages shared between the group in which he talked about killing other rivals and relatives of Gordon were jokes, "gassing" and him "bigging" himself up to his friends.

Mr Neto's barrister Jason Pitter KC asked him how he now felt about his behaviour.

"I feel remorseful," Mr Neto said, adding Gordon was "too young" and it was never his intention to "kill anyone that night".

Meanwhile, the 17-year-old defendant admitted he carried a mallet with him to Elswick on 9 November.

He said he had it as a "defensive object" as he felt "paranoid" of being attacked in Newcastle, adding: "If anyone was going to attack me I could show them I have [the hammer] so they wouldn't continue to try and attack me."

The youth said there had been problems between the rival groups over the summer and he "thought the trouble was going to get worse".

He said he and his friends had gone into Newcastle City Centre on the afternoon of 9 November to get Mr Mbala's shoe back as he had lost it in the earlier attack.

They later went to Elswick to get food from a shop and because some of his friends wanted to take pictures and videos in the area to post on Snapchat, the youth said.

"It would stop the humiliation that was going on online with the video of Benedict Mbala being attacked," the boy said.

Under questioning from his barrister Andrew O'Byrne KC, the boy denied it was to "wind up" their rivals but rather to "get the message across that [his group were] not scared".

He said he saw what he thought was a rival on an electric bike so ran away as he was "frightened of what might happen" and "wanted to get as far away from it as [he] could".

The boy said he did not see Gordon get injured but did witness Mr Neto and the 17-year-old wounding victim "briefly come together".

He said rap lyrics he wrote about the killing were "terrible things to say" of which he was ashamed, adding he felt "sorry" for both victims and it was "a shame this had to happen".

He is the fourth defendant to give evidence, with Mr Mbala the only one so far to decline to take to the witness box.

The trial continues.

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