Elsadig Ibrahim was released from a police station following an unrelated arrest hours before Paul Foster was killed
Paul Foster died after being stabbed in a flat on Muirhead Avenue in West Derby(Image: Merseyside Police)
A dad who is accused of murder was released from a police station and smoked up to £200 of crack cocaine in the hours before a man was stabbed to death, a court has heard. Paul Foster, who was known as “Pablo”, died aged 47 after suffering a single stab wound to the back during a “taxing” on Muirhead Avenue in West Derby in the early hours of October 15, 2024.
His assailants were said to have been “tooled up” with a knife and an imitation firearm at the time of the robbery, stealing drugs and a quantity of cash from the address before fleeing. Four men and a woman, Elsadig Abrahim, Zayd Alasaly, Dylan Blundell, Michael Fields and Sarah Kasseum are currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of his murder.
Abrahim began giving his evidence to the jury this afternoon, Thursday. Under questioning from his counsel Mark Rhind KC, he described how he came to the UK from his native Sudan around 40 years ago in order to study mechanical engineering in Colwyn Bay, North Wales.
Having subsequently lived in Chester and London, Abrahim then moved to Liverpool “almost 30 years ago”. Wearing a grey jumper tucked into his jeans in the witness box, he detailed how he later began using crack cocaine in order to medicate his sciatica and schizophrenia.
However, following the death of his four-month-old baby daughter in 2018, Abrahim said of his drug use: “After the loss of my baby daughter, it hurt me so bad and I started smoking a lot more than normal. From there, it just went out of control.”
This was said to have developed into a habit of up to £200-a-day, with Abrahim saying of his now ex-wife’s view of this: “She was very p***ed off, upset. We couldn’t afford to go on holiday like a normal family. I sold her jewellery and gold, laptop, phones, electronic equipment.”
Jurors were told that Abrahim, who has previous convictions for assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 1992 after “slapping” his victim and for driving matters in 1994, was subsequently arrested on October 13, 2024 while driving his partner’s Motability car. This led to both the vehicle and his mobile phone being seized by police before he was released from custody at around 3pm the following day, with the incident ultimately leading to no charges.
Throughout the rest of October 14, Abrahim was seen on CCTV making several trips on foot between his then home on Egerton Road in Wavertree and that of Eugene Brown’s on nearby Corsewall Street, an address which he labelled a “crack house” and where there was “always a dealer coming in and out”. He said of this: “I went home, had a shower, got some money from my wife and I went to Eugene’s.
“I’m in and out all the time. I would be up and down all day long. It’s because of the addiction, the crack. I’m in and out all the time. This is something I do every day. Sometimes I smoke for two, three days in a row.”
Asked how much crack cocaine he had smoked during the course of the evening, Abrahim replied “maybe 100, 150, 200 pounds, easy”. Of the drug’s effects on him, he added: “It made me feel no pain. It doesn’t make me feel out of control. It doesn’t make me behave badly. It makes me feel good.”
Fields, Kasseum and Blundell, who Abrahim stated were his “crack friends”, were then seen on camera arriving at Mr Brown’s house in the former’s car shortly after 12.30am on October 15. He said of their visit: “We sit and we smoke. They chill out basically. They talked together.”
The four were then seen leaving in the same vehicle around 15 minutes later, with Abrahim being dropped off near his own home before they travelled onwards to the address of a man named Tony Conroy on St Mary’s Close. He told the court: “I wanted money to go and score. I went to score. I asked Mick if he can score for me. I had no phone. I went to my house to get some money. I needed to get some more crack.
“In the drug world, you don’t give someone money to go and score for you. You go with them. Most crackheads, they take the money and they run with it. They never come back.”
Asked whether he was aware where they were going to buy drugs and whether he knew Mr Conroy, Abrahim responded: “No, I didn’t. I didn’t care as long as he was going to get me the crack. He knows where to go and who to get it from.”
Having been given £50 by his then wife, Abrahim recalled that he purchased six wraps of crack cocaine using this money and gave one each to Kasseum, Fields and Blundell, saying: “Mick scored some drugs and we had a smoke there. I shared with my friends, and I smoked the rest. I gave Mick a bag, I gave Dylan a bag and I gave Sarah a bag.”
“I smoked two-and-a-half, and I gave Dylan a little bit extra. He said he’d give me a big bag. He’s greedy. That’s what he does. I gave him a little bit more. He promises to give me a big piece later. He’s going to score some later. Many times, he lets me down. But, sometimes, he came through.”
Having told the jury that Blundell was a “young kid, troubled, homeless” and having “used to feel sorry for him”, Abrahim said that he also gave his co-defendant the pair of Nike trainers which he was wearing “because they were nicer than his shoes”. He added: “He liked them. He had black shoes. He wore £10 shoes. I always looked after him. I’ve got better shoes in my house, another four, five pairs of shoes. The shoes were a bit tight on me.”
Asked if there was “any discussion about where they were going later on” while at Mr Conroy’s house, Abrahim said: “Not that I’ve heard. There might have been some, but I didn’t hear anything.
“Dylan said he’s going to score. He had a word with Mick, and Mick is going to drive him. We went all in Mick’s car. I wanted to get my crack from Dylan, and Mick would drop me home.”
Having earlier said that he had “never met Mr Foster in his life”, Abrahim reported that he, Fields, Kasseum, Blundell and Alasaly all then left in the car to travel to Muirhead Avenue. His evidence is expected to continue tomorrow, Friday.
Jurors previously heard during the prosecution’s opening earlier this month that Mr Foster dealt drugs from the home of a now deceased woman named Lyndzi McCowan on Muirhead Avenue. Fields was said to have driven his four co-defendants to this address in his black Kia Ceed car shortly after 1.30am on October 15, 2024.
David McLachlan KC, the crown’s lead counsel, said: “They were not going to Muirhead Avenue for a little drive on a Tuesday morning in the early hours. The prosecution say that they were in the car for a purpose, and it was not a good purpose. The purpose was to rob Paul Foster of his money and his drugs in what is known commonly as taxing, and they went tooled up. By that, we mean that they were armed with a knife and an imitation firearm.”
Upon their arrival, Kasseum was said to have been “deployed to gain entry” to the address using the intercom, having apparently been “in the know” and “close enough to Paul Foster to know where he was and close enough to know what he did”. Mr McLachlan told the court: “Lyndzi McCowan buzzed her in. It did not work and, in fact, nobody arrived at the flat, so Lyndzi McCowan walked down to speak to the girl, Sarah Kasseum, who had been buzzed in.
“As she made her way downstairs, she was confronted by three males running at her. They were dressed in black. She did not see the girl that she had seen from the window. Lyndzi McCowan ran back into the flat, no doubt as fast as she could, and tried to shut the door against the males that were trying to barge in. She was screaming. She realised that the males were there to rob Paul Foster.”
These men were heard to say “where is he?”, “where’s the bits?” and “where’s the money?” and were said to be armed with “what appeared to be a gun”. Mr McLachlan added: “During that confrontation, Paul Foster was fatally stabbed in the back.
“What did they do? Well, they legged it. They fled the scene. They took cash, stolen from the flat. They were described as wearing all black clothing and balaclavas. A bloodstained piece of black metal, which was the plastic slide component of an air pistol, was recovered from inside 40A Muirhead Avenue. The knife was never recovered.
“It is the prosecution case that Paul Foster’s death was a direct consequence of a drug taxing where he was living and dealing drugs. It is the prosecution case that Michael Fields drove the offenders to the scene, that Sarah Kasseum was present at the scene and acted as a decoy by posing as someone who intended to purchase drugs from Paul Foster.
“But she was there for an entirely different purpose, that being to facilitate access to the flat for the purpose of the taxing that was to take place. Thereafter, the males went in, Michael Fields, Elsadig Abrahim, Zayd Alasaly and Dylan Blundell. They went in to do their business armed with weapons, a knife and an imitation firearm.
“The prosecution case is that all five defendants went to 40A Muirhead Avenue to rob Paul Foster of his drugs and money. They went mob handed. They were armed with a knife and an imitation firearm. The prosecution case is that they shared a common purpose, and that common purpose was, without a doubt, to rob Paul Foster and, if it came to it, and, sadly, it did, to commit murder.
“Was the stabbing of Paul Foster within the scope of a joint enterprise if the need arose? That will be a question that you will grapple with. The prosecution case is that it obviously was, and it will be necessary for you to consider, individually, what the intentions of each of the defendants was in this case.
“The prosecution case is that, whilst the defendants went to rob Paul Foster, they did so in the knowledge that, if it got on top, they could resort to using the weapons that they had, that were in their joint possession, to wound or to inflict grievous bodily harm with intent. The knife was not a toy, members of the jury.”
Abrahim, aged 61 and of Croxteth Road in Toxteth, 23-year-old Alasaly, of Corinto Street in Toxteth, 26-year-old Blundell, of Corsewall Street in Wavertree, 41-year-old Kasseum, of Lower Breck Road in Anfield, and 50-year-old Fields, of no fixed address, all deny murder and possession of a bladed article in a public place. Abrahim, Alasaly and Kasseum have also pleaded not guilty to robbery and carrying an imitation firearm with intent to commit an offence.
Blundell and Fields, however, admit these two counts, with the latter having similarly pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The trial, before Judge Simon Medland KC, continues.