MURDER suspect Paul Brown told a friend that he had stabbed someone - and that the man had died, a jury at Maidstone Crown Court heard today.

The evidence came via a live TV link from Hong Kong where former student Wing Lun Lai is now living.

The murder victim, Marco Schiroli, died on New Year's Eve in 2002 following an incident outside the Vineyard wine bar in Maidstone Road, Rochester.

Mr Lai, known locally as Alan Lai, said he came to know a girl named Ellen, from Taiwan, and her friend Paul Brown, while studying at the Kent Institute of Art and Design.

At one stage Paul and Ellen, and himself, were all living in the same building, in New Road, Chatham.

On New Year’s Eve, 2002, Mr Lai was having a drink in the Von Alten pub in Chatham High Street when he received a telephone call from Ellen, asking him to go for a drink with her at the Vineyard.

They met at Rochester Station and made their way towards the Vineyard. “We got very close to the Vineyard, but having got there, the police stopped us,” he said. “It was blocked.”

He realised that something must have happened. During a brief series of telephone calls he was persuaded to go with Ellen to the Style and Winch public house in Maidstone.

“I spoke to Paul on the phone,” he said. “I said at first I don’t want to go, but he said he would pay for my journey - my taxi - and buy me drinks, so I went.”

Mr Lai added: “He told me he had a few problems and he stabbed a man.”

Later, at the pub in Maidstone, Brown told him that he got blood on his clothing and needed to change and take a shower.

“He didn’t tell me who the man was that he had stabbed,” he said. “He had stabbed him two times. He didn’t say anything about what had happened to the man. “He told me not to tell anyone. Ellen was next to me at the same table.”

He added: “He asked me if Ellen could go back home and pick up his clothes, photographs, anything with his name on it, and his passport.”

Mr Lai said he and Ellen went back to Brown’s address in a car driven by one of Brown’s friends, and he was dropped off at Rochester station while the other two drove off with Brown’s possessions in the car.

The following day - New Year’s Day - Mr Lai received a telephone call from Paul Brown.

“He said the man he had stabbed last night was dead in the hospital. He told me not to tell anyone.”

David Fisher, QC, on behalf of Brown, suggested that there had never been an occasion when the defendant told Mr Lai he had stabbed somebody. “That was something you read about or heard about subsequently?” he suggested.

Mr Lai replied: “He said he stabbed a man at the Vineyard. Yes, he said that to me. I remember.”

As far as the blood was concerned, Mr Fisher suggested that Brown had been speaking to someone else at the Style and Winch, which Mr Lai may have overheard, and that he said something to the effect that he had blood on his hands.

“He said he got blood on his clothes,” said Mr Lai.

Mr Fisher went on to suggest that when he and Ellen were driven back to Paul Brown’s address to collect his belongings, what Brown particularly wanted were some photographs of his children.

Said Mr Lai: “He wanted photographs with himself on them - pictures and letters with his name.

“It’s not about the children. It’s about him, that he should go away. Yes, he said about his passport; anything with his name on it. He said: ‘Don’t leave any evidence behind’.”

Further questioned, he refuted Mr Fisher’s suggestion that he was jealous of Paul Brown because he was Ellen’s boyfriend, and that he was very fond of Ellen.

“I treat her as my sister,” he said. “I like her, but I don’t love her.”

Mr Lai’s evidence was brought to the court via new technology recently installed at Maidstone Crown Court. It was the first time it had been used for an international link, and avoided the need for him to be flown to England to give his testimony.

The trial continues.