A father was beaten to death as he walked home by a group who stopped him because they said he ‘looked like one of Ant and Dec’.
Danny Humble, 35, had been on a night out with his partner in Cramlington, Northumberland, last year.
Seven teenagers are now on trial accused of killing him in a ‘short and sustained’ attack around midnight.
The teens were aged between 16 and 18 at the time, with two still unable to be identified due to their age.
Mr Humble was left with a ‘catastrophic’ head injury from which he could not recover in the attack on May 28, Newcastle Crown Court heard.
Mr Humble and his partner Adele Stubbs had enjoyed a meal and drinks out after lockdown restrictions were eased and she later recalled they had drunk ‘a canny skinful’.
Jacob Hallam QC, prosecuting, said a witness, not one of the defendants, told police he heard some of the group and Mr Humble ‘just having a little bit of crack on’.
He said they told Mr Humble ‘that he looked like one of television’s Ant and Dec’ and how the 35-year-old replied words to the effect ‘Aye good one, lads’.
The witness added that one of the group said: ‘Can I have your autograph? You’re my inspiration.”
Another defendant said: “Yeah, you do look like him.”
Soon after, Ms Stubbs recalled her partner said something like ‘What did you say?’ and people moved towards him before he was hit with an uppercut and a group surrounded him, separating him from her.
When she got to him, he was unconscious and bleeding on the ground, Mr Hallam said.
The gang surrounded him near an underpass, repeatedly kicked him on the floor and left him, the court heard.
The group of teenagers, who all deny murder, had also been out drinking in local pubs.
Jurors were told the fatal attack took 15 seconds.
The witness later told police: ‘They didn’t miss a part of his body, they were all moving around his body, kicking him in.’
Mr Hallam said Mr Humble may have hit one of the 17-year-old defendants in the head before the youths surrounded him.
Ms Stubbs tried to perform first aid and dialled 999, trying ‘desperately but fruitlessly’ to save her partner, the court heard.
Some of the defendants stayed around in the aftermath of the attack, jurors heard.
One of the 17-year-olds appeared to have been crying, a witness was to tell police.
Mr Hallam said all of them eventually ran away.
The defendants, who all deny murder, are: Ethan Scott, 18, of Blyth; Alistair Dickson, 18, of Blyth; Izaak Little, 18, of Blyth; Kyros Robinson, 18, from Seaton Delaval; Bailey Wilson, of Blyth; and two 17-year-olds who cannot be identified by the media due to their age.
The trial continues.
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