09 Apr 2022 • 1 day ago • 4 minutes reading • 25 comments Stock Photo Photo by Stock Photo / Getty Images
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Matthew Riley was walking up Richmond Street after a night out with friends.
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Uber driver Ali Khan Aslan once again made his way through the London bar scene at closing time, hoping to get some fare. They both saw a quarrel. They both knew something serious had happened. They both wanted to help. On Friday, the two men were the last witnesses to the crown at Robert Ashley Williams’ second-degree murder trial, where they each recounted their memories of how a typical night at the end of the hour turned out to be deadly. Williams, 39, pleaded not guilty to the death of Dereck Szaflarski, 27, who was stabbed five times during a brief altercation in a Richmond Street showroom on May 26, 2018. A knife wound pierced his heart. killing him. Shortly before the two of them got into a fight, Szaflarski and two of his friends passed in front of Williams’s car.
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Riley, 33, told Supreme Court jurors questions from Crown Attorney James Spangenberg that he had gone to a bar on Richmond Row with three friends for three hours before Saflarski’s death. He said he had been drinking, but was “quite sober” as he walked north on the west side of Richmond to Oxford Street. “I stopped and looked at two men fighting,” he said. “I thought it was a punch fight.” She did not know any man. One man was “hitting” the other on the upper chest, Riley said. The other man raised his hands in front of him, “defending”. Riley said he could see a blonde woman sitting in the passenger seat of the white car that stopped in the curb lane in front of the lobby. She had lowered her window at first, but quickly wrapped it up.
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The man who made the punch was without a shirt and went to the driver’s side and the car “left very quickly” south on Richmond Street, Riley said. The other man held his chest as he passed Richmond, leaving a trail of blood behind him. A “frantic” woman was with him. “You could tell he was tripping,” Riley said. “He is walking on the street and he is collapsing. . . “You could say he was hurt a lot more than just being punched.” Riley ran across the street to see if he could help, “but the pool of blood had already started when I got there.” This photo, presented in court as evidence, shows the scene at Richmond Row in central London, hours after a late-night collision in May 2018 that led to the death of Dereck Szaflarski with a knife. Riley called 911. The man on the ground was Saflarski. It was on its back and “the pool of blood just circled. There was almost nothing I could do. “He lost blood in seconds.” During the cross-examination, defense attorney Chris Wagboe suggested that Riley was much more drunk that night than he remembered. Riley said he was “drunk, but not drunk” after drinking three beers and a double rum and Coca-Cola.
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Riley agreed that he did not see Saflarski rushing, hitting or holding Williams and never saw Williams in his shirt. “Your memory is not accurate,” Wagboe told Riley. “I think it’s expensive. “It was a tragic event,” Riley said. After testifying, Riley said a quick prayer before leaving the witness box. Aslan, 33, said he was on his way home when he decided to make another crossing on Richmond Street from Oxford Street, hoping someone needed a ride on the Uber. He was driving slowly in the middle south lane of Richmond when he saw a white car stop in the lane of the curb and “some quarrel” in front of him, he said. He was “used to seeing such things” at the close on Friday, he said. He waited for the road to open so he could pass.
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“Everything happened very quickly,” he said. He saw two men joining and one of them started to move away. Aslan said a tall white man in his 20s walked in his car and entered the street, lifting his shirt as he walked. “I clearly remember that a lot of blood was coming out of him,” Aslan said. “At that moment, I realized he was stabbed,” he said. The man’s girlfriend “was screaming and that helped me work out what happened.” A second man, who was black, was shirtless, Aslan said. “I literally saw him for a few seconds and he just got back in his car and left immediately.” Aslan said he was “shocked and a little shocked” by what he had seen. “For a moment, I thought of chasing him,” he said, perhaps to get the license plate number or a better description, “but I was a little shocked.” The white car ran south. Aslan, driving slowly in the same direction, watched the car turn right on Mill Street. When Aslan returned to the area, police and paramedics arrived. “I felt I had to approach and make a statement,” he said. “What happened was terrible and I just wanted to help.” The trial is set to begin on Tuesday. [email protected] twitter.com/JaneatLFPress
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