A man on trial accused of a joint knife attack on a waiter told a jury the first he knew of any weapon or assault was when his girlfriend's brother showed him a blade and said 'I've just stabbed him'.

Giving evidence over two days at Canterbury Crown Court, Daryl Brown maintained he had done nothing more than throw a Stella beer can at Modasher Hossain – who was on his way home from work – in "frustration" and then chased him from Whitstable train station.

The 33-year-old said he did so because he believed restaurant worker Mr Hossain had stolen a phone but, on realising it was a "misunderstanding", had then left him unharmed.

He claimed it was not until he was sitting a few minutes later on the station footbridge with his then girlfriend Sophie Judd that her brother, Lewis Day, allegedly placed a knife on the ground between them to reveal what he had done.

Brown told the jury he had last seen Day running past him into the alleyway and shouting at Mr Hossain.

He maintained he did not know Day was armed, had not taken part in any stabbing and had not gone within two metres of the victim.

Day, however, previously told the court that it was his co-defendant who had attacked the 55-year-old.

He recalled when giving evidence that when the can had been thrown back by Mr Hossain, Brown threatened to "f*** him up", gave chase and, once in the alley, punched him unconscious and stabbed him several times.

The 25-year-old, who works in Burger King, told the jury all he had done was pursue Brown from the station to try to stop him, and then checked to see if the stricken man was still alive as he lay seriously injured in a pool of blood.

Brown, of Tomlin Drive, Margate, and Day, of Hereson Road, Ramsgate, both deny wounding Mr Hossain with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, as well as the alternative, less serious offence of unlawful wounding.

Neither man knew the victim, who is known as Sharif, but it is alleged both pursued and brutally assaulted him in "an almost instant and disproportionate reaction" to his "trivial" throwing back of the can.

The court heard Mr Hossain was making his way home from an evening shift in Herne Bay on December 16 last year when he was attacked in an area known locally as Stream Walk alley just before midnight.

As well as suffering multiple knife wounds to his leg and buttock, the married waiter also sustained a traumatic brain injury and has not been able to tell police what happened after he caught his train home to Whitstable.

However, jurors have heard eye-witness accounts and watched CCTV footage depicting events surrounding the violent incident, including the chucking of the can by both parties as well as the chase.

The attack itself was not caught on camera but it is alleged by the prosecution that it was carried out as a "joint enterprise" while Brown was out of view for 25 seconds and Day for one minute and 45 seconds.

The court heard Brown, Day and Miss Judd had gone to Whitstable that night so Miss Judd could "fake beg", and they were making their way home when they encountered Mr Hossain.

He was on the London-bound platform, having disembarked from his train, when cameras captured him picking up Miss Judd's phone from the ground where she had been sitting just seconds earlier.

By this time the trio had crossed to the coastbound platform and, on realising Mr Hossain had found the phone, Day walked across the tracks to retrieve it as Brown went to go back over the footbridge.

But Brown told the court that when he returned to the coastbound platform, no one told him the device had been handed over and so he launched his can towards Mr Hossain in a bid to make him 'put the phone down'.

Brown described his action as being, in retrospect, "stupid and idiotic".

Within seconds, however, it had been thrown back and, as Mr Hossain left the station, Brown said he went after him in the belief he still had the phone.

Recalling how Mr Hossain was already in the alley when he reached the steps leading down into it, Brown denied making any threat, using any violence or them coming within two metres of each other.

He told the jury that having stopped on the bottom or second to bottom step, he called out "Where's the f***ing phone".

"He (Mr Hossain) stopped and turned to face me and made a gesture. It was basically saying he had given it back," said Brown, demonstrating to the court how the victim had used his hands to "shoo" him away.

"He was saying 'She has, he has, they have' (it), maybe. He was a middle-aged man, well-dressed....That's when I realised he was not somebody trying to steal the phone and that it was just a misunderstanding."

It was as Mr Hossain turned to walk away and Brown headed back up the steps that he told the jury Day ran past him "in a hurry", into the alley and shouting: "Who are you throwing a beer at?"

Brown said he carried on walking back to his girlfriend and "was not bothered" to look to see what Day was doing.

But he told the jury it was when Day returned to the station that he allegedly pulled out what appeared to be a 20cm-bladed kitchen knife.

"He placed a knife down and said 'I've just stabbed him.'...I thought he was joking at first," Brown claimed.

“There was a lot of anxiety and stuff going around my head. I wasn't thinking straight...”

"I didn't think anything of it until I noticed on the tip of the knife there was, like, blood and then I realised he wasn't joking."

Brown said he felt "anxious, panicky and a bit concerned" while Miss Judd became "quite hysterical and distressed".

"I was panicking, didn't know what to do and just walking around in circles, figuring out what to do," he continued.

"I was saying 'You just stabbed someone, you just f***ing stabbed someone'. Sophie was pretty much the same, and crying and being hysterical.

"He (Day) was telling us to 'Shut the f*** up'."

Brown added that at one point Day took his sister to one side and told her 'It's OK, we'll blame Daryl' while he (Brown) had tried to calm his girlfriend down.

"I was saying 'We need to get away. Lewis has just stabbed someone and I'm not going to prison for what your brother has done.'."

The court heard that an eye-witness recalled hearing one of the men, reportedly Brown, telling Day "We're going to get done for attempted murder", to which he (Day) allegedly replied: "No, we are going to get done for murder because we are going to leave him here to die.

Brown told the jury such a remark had "possibly" been made by him but he could not recall hearing any response.

Asked by his barrister Adam Butler why he had said it, Brown explained: "Because I didn't do nothing and I didn't want to get into trouble for something I didn't do."

In his evidence, Day told the court it was he who made the "attempted murder" comment and Brown who responded with the reference to "murder".

Brown told the court that when Miss Judd had said police were coming, he pointed at Day and replied: "I don't care, I wasn't the one that stabbed him. You did."

CCTV showed all three boarding a coastbound train, only for a fight to break out between the two men before Brown and Miss Judd disembarked.

Day stayed onboard and was eventually arrested when the train arrived at Margate station shortly before 1am.

Brown remained in Whitstable and was arrested about an hour later.

However, the court heard that when police had first arrived on the scene and spoke to Brown, he told them he had been in a "domestic" before later talking about a disturbance involving "a group of youths".

Asked by Mr Butler why he had not mentioned the alleged stabbing by Day, Brown told the court: "I was scared and worried that I was going to get dragged into something I didn't do.

"There was a lot of anxiety and stuff going around my head. I wasn't thinking straight."

His reference to 'youths' was, he said, not true but an attempt to get help for Mr Hossain "without saying what had happened".

Brown maintained he did not punch or stab the victim and had not been armed with a knife.

"When Mr Hossain was attacked, did you play any part in that?" asked his barrister, to which Brown replied: "No, none at all."

"Did you act jointly with Lewis in what he did in that alley?" added Mr Butler. "No," said Brown.

During cross-examination by Day's barrister, Neil Ross, Brown maintained that neither Day nor Miss Judd had told him the phone had been handed back before the chase began.

He said the throwing of the can was not an act of violence and he had not been aiming for Mr Hossain.

Brown also denied having a "short fuse", pursuing Mr Hossain because he had thrown the beer can back at them, or having caught up with him in the alley.

He also claimed his co-accused had "always had a vendetta” against him and, during a series of questions from Mr Ross, reiterated his account that he had stayed on the steps and not gone further into the alley to attack Mr Hossain.

"You punched him hard and knocked him straight out," asserted Mr Ross, before accusing Brown of then stabbing the victim multiple times.

But maintaining his innocence and referring to the amount of time he was out of sight of any camera, Brown replied: "I think it would take longer than 25 seconds....I have never stabbed someone."

The jury is expected to retire to consider its verdicts tomorrow (Tuesday).