A jury has heard from two of the men accused of murdering an Exmouth dad – both say one of their co-suspects said ‘I think I have stabbed him’.
Denva Smith, aged 24, died from a single stab wound at the end of May last year. Standing trial at Exeter Crown Court, all denying murder, are Zac Davies, aged 23, of Hawthorn Grove, Exmouth; Dylan Chadwick, 23, of Cambourne Avenue, St Helens; Ben Mason, 23, of no fixed abode, Exmouth, Thomas Ward, aged 24, of Russell Walk, Exeter, and Ben Helliker, 26, of Halsdon Road in Exmouth.
Denva was stabbed once through the arm, severing an artery, and bled to death in a garden in Hawthorn Grove, Exmouth, after he and a friend were set upon by five men, who split them up by chasing them.
Chadwick and Davies both denied the group planned an attack on Denva, to rob him of cocaine worth around £5,500.
They said the men had been walking to a 24-hour garage in Exmouth and gave chase after a ‘commotion’ on Dinan Way.
Chadwick, who had never met Denva, but admitted chasing him, but not causing his death, told the court: “It was a silly decision I shouldn’t have got myself into.”
He told the court of his ‘shock’ when Ward admitted he might have stabbed Denva.
Chadwick said: “He told me that Denva came at him and that he thought he was carrying something, or had a knife. He said Ward told him ‘I took my knife out’.
Chadwick said: “He said he thought he might have stabbed him.”
“At that point I was shocked. I didn’t really want to know anymore.”
Davies, who also admitted running after Denva, but not killing him, said: “I joined in because I thought my friend was getting attacked.”
Davies said: “Someone noticed blood on Tom’s shirt. And he said he must have stabbed him.”
Chadwick, from Liverpool, had cadged a lift to Exmouth with Davies, arranged by their mutual friend Mason, who knew Chadwick’s Devon-based girlfriend.
He denied there was a plot against Denva, which the prosecution said was devised during the long drive down to Exmouth when the five men were shown to have spoken to each other by telephone.
Chadwick told the jury he followed his friend Mason in chasing Denva after witnessing a ‘commotion’ in Dinan Way, Exmouth, and hearing shouting between two people.
He said the name ‘Denva’ was shouted, which triggered the chase.
He told the court how a week earlier he had seen an Instagram video posted by Mason showing his injured face, which he said was from an attack by Denva.
“I put two and two together and knew we were chasing Denva,” he said.
Chadwick said he ran after Denva to help his mate, Mason, telling the jury: “I was intending for Ben to catch him up and give him a few punches.”
Chadwick told the court he shouted ‘get him lad, get him,’ in encouragement.
He said: “I knew about the incident the week before so I made the decision to get involved.”
Chadwick admitted chasing Denva, who ran towards garages at Hawthorn Grove, stumbling at the bottom of the steep grass embankment, but said he stopped and watched him run out of view.
He said: “I did have one hundred per cent intention in what I was doing. I was sticking up for my mate. It was a stupid decision really.”
Chadwick said he had not meant to cause Denva any serious harm or injury, believing he had run off, escaping over a garden wall.
“We thought he had run away from us,” he told the jury. “We thought he had gone. We thought nothing had happened to him. We thought we had just chased someone.”
He added: “I didn’t think it was serious by the way he ran.”
Chadwick said: “We didn’t know where Denva had gone. We had chased him down into a close. That was the direction we knew he was going. At that point I just followed Ben, so Ben could have him in a fight, and give a few punches maybe. We didn’t know he had been stabbed at this point.”
He said they went into the garden, where Denva was later found dying by police, but thought it empty.
“We followed him down into Ashfield Close, at some point he went towards the right. I followed Ben and it was completely silent in the garden. We were a couple of seconds behind him. We thought he had run away.”
“When we got to the garden it was completely dark, there was no lighting at all.”
Chadwick said he and Mason saw no one and ‘just assumed’ Denva had escaped.
“We followed him into the back garden. We thought he had run away. I shouted ‘you little maggot’, or something like that.”
Afterwards, the five men went to Gibson Close, home of Ward’s partner Faith Lea, to talk about what happened.
Chadwick told the jury how on the way Ward said ‘one of two things’ to him.
“I think I have stabbed him, or I have stabbed him.”
Chadwick said Ward told him: “He came at me. He thought he had something in his hand so I took my knife out. He swung at me and I swung at him and I thought I might have stabbed him.”
They spoke in the kitchen until Ward’s partner told them to leave.
Chadwick said: “We had a discussion about it. At which point we spoke about it more. And at that point he [Ward] was sure that he stabbed him.”
Ward’s partner was ‘shocked’, said Chadwick. “There were five lads in her kitchen who looked a bit erratic and panicky.
“We knew someone had been stabbed. More so myself really, I knew I had just chased him.”
Chadwick said: “I was very shocked and confused how it could have happened. It was a matter of seconds.”
Chadwick and Davies watched the police activity from the bathroom window at Hawthorne Grove.
“We didn’t know how serious it was,” said Chadwick, who denied seeing the fatal attack on Denva.
When police came to arrest them at 3am, they had removed their clothes, hiding them in the bed, to give the impression they had been asleep and not gone out.
Chadwick said: “I just panicked. I thought the clothes were incriminating. Putting them under the bed sheets, under the duvet, I wasn’t really thinking.”
“We wanted it to look like we were not involved, like we hadn’t been out.”
Police seized their phones and blood-stained shoes. Chadwick could not explain how the back of his trousers, or shoes, were stained with Denva’s blood.
The court heard Davies knew Denva from school and was caught shoplifting with him as a teenager.
He told the jury how on May 30, 2025 he drove down to Exmouth from Birkenhead, where he lived, with the plan to spend the week decorating his mum’s Hawthorn Grove home.
In Exmouth, Davies said and he and Chadwick unloaded their motorbikes from the back of his truck shortly after midnight, he snorted cocaine, then they set off to walk to the Salterton Road 24-hour garage for booze, along with Mason, Ward, and Helliker.
On Dinan Way Davies saw Denva Smith with friend Kevin Fitzgerald. Denva was ‘dead close’ and ‘squaring up’ to Ward, who shouted ‘boys’ like he was calling for help.
Davies said ‘I thought my friend was getting attacked’, so ran across the road to ‘help and chase’ Denva off, along with Chadwick and Mason.
The jury heard Davies say he gave up the chase after hurting his leg jumping down a grass embankment after Denva. He returned to Dinan Way, where he saw Ward and Helliker shouting at Kevin Fitzgerald.
He said had he caught Denva he ‘possibly’ would have assaulted him and ‘probably’ would have caused him some harm.
He told the court he saw Mason and Chadwick appear from Ashfield Close. Davies said he shouted ‘did you get him?’ but was told no.
He could not explain how Denva’s blood came to be on his shoes other than he had run after him through blood-splashed grass.
He denied all five men had chased fatally-stabbed Denva around the garages in the dark.
Davies said: “He ran off so I thought he was alright. He ran off so I thought he would be alright.
He told the court he had not set out to harm Denva that night.
Davies told the jury how after Denva fled the men went to Ward’s flat in Gibson Close but got to ‘f*ck off and get out’ by his partner, Faith.
Davies said: “We weren’t in there for very long. We got told to f*ck off as Tom said he had stabbed him.
“Tom said he might have stabbed Denva. He said it was a set up and Faith told us all to f*ck off and get out.”
The jury heard Davies used encrypted message service Signal to contact a friend to tell him Ward had stabbed Denva.
He said: “I told Brooklyn that Tom had stabbed Denva.”
He denied messaging his friend ‘we done that thing’, or earlier telling him he could not meet up as planned as he had something to do with the boys first.
The jury heard how an unread message on Davies’ phone from the same friend said: ‘how much cocaine did you get’.
Davies refused to give police his Signal password on his arrest saying he thought his messages on the app would get people into trouble.
Multiple witnesses in Dinan Way said they were woken in the early hours of May 31, 2025, by aggressive shouting, ‘stampede’ sounds of running, and threats to kill, seeing a group of five men give chase.
The prosecution said Denva appeared to be deliberately singled out and made the ‘fatal mistake’ of running down a grass embankment towards a block of garages at Hawthorn Grove, where he was cut off by the men, and fatally stabbed.
He lost his shoes in the chase. He bled to death in a garden in Ashfield Close, stabbed once in the arm through an artery.
Neighbours called the emergency services on hearing Denva, crying ‘help me, I have been stabbed. I’m somebody’s son’.
The trial continues.
