Bradley Wall Leeds murder trial: Co-accused tells court of his 'chaotic' drug use

Aiden Ramsdale went on to describe the Dewsbury Road area of Beeston as “a place that never sleeps”, adding that the temptations to feed his crack and heroin habit were too powerful to resist.

Mr Wall’s body was found in the front basement area of a property on Fairford Avenue in Beeston on June 23. He had more than 100 injuries consistent with a fall from a second-floor flat and a serious assault.

Leeds Crown Court has heard Mr Wall was either strangled or died from pressure being put on his neck. An attempt was then made to set his body on fire.

Ramsdale, 25, denies murder and is standing trial alongside 31-year-old Patrick Mason, who also pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Taking to the stand, Ramsdale told jurors that his life had been chaotic and was centred around using drugs as an “escape” – adding the availability of drugs in the Dewsbury Road area had made the temptation unavoidable. He said he would regularly “snowball”, in a reference to mixing crack cocaine with heroin.

"It used to just take me away from reality for an hour or so,” he said. “I just felt like I had no purpose in life anymore and was suicidal. I did not feel like I had anything else so I built my life around taking it.”

In addition to taking crack cocaine and heroin, the court heard he would illegally seek out prescription drugs such as diazepam in order to sleep, as well as painkillers like pregabalin and xanax. He would also smoke spice – a synthetic form of cannabis.

Ramsdale went on to tell the court that he would regularly shoplift in order to feed his habit. "It was to supply my drugs,” he said. “I needed to steal to pay for it, otherwise I would have been poorly.”

The court was told that a few months before his eventual arrest for murder, Ramsdale was moved by a housing charity to his house in Fairford Avenue. The move came after he complained that his previous home was in a bad area, but it was in Beeston where he was pressured by dealers into selling drugs to help pay off his debts.

Ramsdale said: “Dewsbury Road is a place that never sleeps. There are constant drug users, party people and prostitutes. There are people who are always about and are drug dealing.”

In June, Ramsdale met Patrick Mason in a trap house – a building in which drugs are sold and consumed 24 hours a day. Ramsdale said Mason told him he was homeless and had “made it apparent” that he was going to stay at Ramsdale’s house. He went on to claim that he and Mason would shoplift around twice a day, while Mason was also “selling tablets” from the house.

He said the two had seen Bradley Wall on Dewsbury Road in the early hours of June 23. Mason had offered to sell drugs to Mr Wall and the three returned to the house in Fairford Avenue. Ramsdale insisted it was not their intention to rob Mr Wall.

The trial continues.