THE man accused of murdering Alex Peguero Sosa could have walked away at any point, a jury heard this week.

Plymouth Crown Court was told Lee Dent, 42, from East Portlemouth, swore and used a racist word to describe the 17-year-old and then said 'he deserved it'.

Dent denies murdering Alex at a taxi rank near Kingsbridge Quay in the early hours of Sunday, July 6.

The defendant said it was an accident, claiming he threw a punch without realising he held a bottle in his hand. He also said Alex had a knife, the jury was told.

Simon Laws QC, opening the trial for the prosecution, said the teenager never had a weapon and that Dent had armed himself with the bottle moments before the fatal blow.

He said: 'In the early hours of Sunday morning there was a minor dispute at a taxi rank in Kingsbridge.

'After a little while two people were facing one another, one was Lee Dent, the other was a young man called Alex Peguero-Sosa, he was 17.

'Suddenly, the defendant Lee Dent swung a bottle or part of one into his neck. He did not survive the terrible injuries that he sustained from the blow.

'It was an act of pure aggression from the defendant. This was not a situation in which there was a need to use force of any kind.

'It was a situation from which he could have walked away at any point. Instead he chose to resort to violence of an extreme kind and a young life was wasted as a result.'

Mr Laws said Dent left the scene and went to see an acquaintance, Henry Felton.

He told Felton that Alex 'deserved it', using a racist term, the prosecution said.

Mr Laws added: 'As Alex is bleeding to death and the defendant is scurrying away from the scene, he is speaking in racially abusive terms and giving his opinion that Alex deserved what happened to him.

'The defendant knew exactly what he had done and had done it in temper, not by accident, Alex had done nothing that could possibly begin to mean that he deserved what had happened to him.'

The prosecution said that Dent cut his hand in the attack and when a trainee nurse friend treated it he told her: 'I think I have killed someone, he pulled a knife on me and I stuck a bottle in his neck.'

Alex was pronounced dead at Derriford Hospital just after 4am. The court was told a wound, seven and a half centimetres deep, was found in his neck.

The court hear that an argument over a video on a mobile phone was the catalyst to events.

The court heard that while Alex and his friends were relaxing, Dent was drinking and taking ecstasy with his then-girlfriend Devon Rowe at a party.

Dent, his girlfriend and a couple of others, moved on to pubs, with Dent drinking vodka and beer. Later they made the decision to try and get a taxi.

Claire Jarvis told the court she was with Dent and Ms Rowe and first saw Alex and his friends when she walked to the taxi rank. The teenagers were being 'cocky' and 'boisterous' but it all seemed to be light-hearted.

Ms Jarvis said she became annoyed when one of the boys filmed her with his mobile phone.

She said the group began to 'take the mick' out of her weight, so answered with a comment about Alex's 'afro' and his friend's lisp – but she said it was 'light-hearted' and 'not angry'.

James Westlake told the court how he was talking to one of the lads at around 2.15am when he saw the altercation between Dent and Alex over his shoulder, remembering only that he'd heard Alex shout 'racist'.

He told the jury that after seeing Dent swing his right arm and make contact with the left hand side of Alex's neck, he had 'rugby tackled' Dent and bundled him into the bus station before escorting him away. Mr Westlake told the court he heard someone scream 'You killed him! You killed him!'

Ms Jarvis told the court Ms Rowe had run up screaming 'There's blood everywhere – I think he's dying.'

She said she and Ms Rowe remained on the quay until the police and ambulance arrived, calling and texting Dent in an attempt to get him to return and 'sort it all out'. She said: 'We were just so mad. Not only about what he'd done but that he'd just ran away'.

The trial continues.