A man who was standing metres from Ian Ogle when he was attacked near his east Belfast home said he saw the deceased being struck up to 50 times with a flick bat, a court heard on Thursday.
The 45-year old father-of-two was beaten and stabbed close to his Cluan Place home on the evening of Sunday January 27, 2019.
It's the Crown's case that Mr Ogle was attacked by a group of five men.
Jonathan Brown (38) from Whinney Hill in Dundonald and 45-year old Mark Sewell of Glenmount Drive in Newtownabbey pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Ogle earlier this month and were handed life sentences.
Glenn Rainey (37) whose address was given as Ballyhalbert Caravan Park, Walter Alan Ervine (42) from Litchfield Street in Belfast and 41-year old Robert Spiers from Millars Park in Dundonald have all denied the murder charge and are currently standing trial in Belfast.
During the third day of the non-jury trial, a number of statements were read - including one made from a family friend who witnessed the fatal attack.
In his statement, the witness said he was a friend of Ian Ogle’s son Ryan and was out walking his dog when he saw ‘Ogie’ standing on the footpath at Cluan Place.
After stopping to chat the witness said he noticed a group of men with their faces covered running towards them.
He said:
“It seemed like there was a wee bit of hesitation but then one of them hit Ogie. I can’t remember where that landed but then they all started beating him.
“By the time they started hitting him, I was about two or three metres from where they were attacking him.”
In his statement, the witness said he also saw one of the attackers striking Mr Ogle with what he described as flick bat.
He said: “I saw this person with the flick bat hit Ogie many many times - at least 30, 40, 50 times to the head, face and shoulders.”
The statement continued: “Another one of the men attacking Ogie had a long, skinny, metal rod-type thing.
“I saw Ogie being struck with this weapon over and over.”
The witness estimated the group attack lasted around a minute before one of the gang said ‘right, come on lads, camera’ which he thought was a reference to a camera on a peace wall.
He said one man who stayed behind “repeatedly stamped on Mr Ogle’s head with his foot.
"Ogie's head was on the ground and this male was stamping on his head with force. This man stamped on Ogie's head at least 20 times easy. It looked like he was doing it as hard as he could.
"By this stage, Ogie wasn't saying anything. The others were calling for the man stamping on Ogie to 'come on'.
"The man kept stamping on him but eventually after about 30 seconds or so he ran in the same direction as the others."
He said he started shouting and asking Mr Ogle if he was okay, then he then ran the short distance to Ian Olge’s home to raise the alarm.
The witness said he called Ian Ogle’s partner Vera Johnston at 9.21pm to tell her he had been beaten up, was in a bad way .
In his statement, the witness added that before the ambulance arrived, he saw injuries on Mr Ogle's back and arm.
He said: "His back looked sliced. It looked like he had two stab wounds to one of his arms. There was blood everywhere, all over the street, and his face was just mangled and all red with blood."
Another witness who was driving along the Albertbridge Road told that after turning into Cluan Place she saw a male lying on the ground with wounds to his back.
In her statement, the woman said: "I could see his blood running into a drain and at that point thought he was dead."
Mr Justice McFarland also heard statements from two paramedics who tended to Mr Ogle.
One paramedic described seeing a crowd of people "screaming and shouting" at the "crazy" scene and a man lying on the ground.
He said: "I knew straight away from experience that he was dead."
The paramedic said Mr Ogle was placed into the back of an ambulance were advanced life support was conducted whilst he was being transported to the Royal Victoria Hospital.
In his statement, he said: "I remember the blood was pumping out of him and I saw the stab wounds on his shoulder.
"He never showed any signs of life while I was with him."
A second paramedic added that he observed “multiple” stab wounds on Mr Ogle’s back and that there were “too many for us to count with any accuracy.”