June 18, 2021 4.07 pm This story is over 40 months old

Friend of teen accused of Roberts Buncis murder speaks out in court

A mutual friend said the murder accused was “oblivious”

A teenager alleged to have murdered a 12-year-old appeared “oblivious” when he spoke hours later to a mutual friend, a jury at Lincoln Crown Court was told on Friday.

The friend told the jury that he spoke to the defendant later on the day when Roberts is alleged to have been murdered at Fishtoft.

At the time of their conversation Roberts had been reported missing and some of his friends spent time looking for him in Boston.

The witness said: “I called him (the defendant). I talked to him about what a girl had told me. Something had happened. He (Roberts) had disappeared.

“He (the defendant) was oblivious to it. More like he didn’t really care. We talked about how weird the situation was because Rob wasn’t the type of person to run off. We talked about that for about 10 minutes. After that we shifted the conversation.”

The witness said that earlier on the same day he met up with the defendant in Boston and they spent time together.

When asked to describe how the defendant appeared, the witness said: “He was obviously feeling down. In general he was drained. A bit snappy. To put it bluntly he was just different.

“Physically he was injured on his hand. He was all plastered up. I asked him what happened. He said he cut himself.”

The witness said he later learned from a friend that Roberts was dead.

The 14-year-old defendant, who cannot be identified because of a court order, denies the murder of Roberts Buncis.

The jury has been told that Roberts was lured from his home by the defendant in the middle of the night who then stabbed him “again and again” leaving him with multiple knife wounds.

Roberts’ body was found in a wooded area near to a footpath in Fishtoft on the morning of December 12, 2020.

— The trial continues on Monday.

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