A jury was today due to consider its verdict in the trial of a Latvian man accused of killing his partner’s son at flats in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Juris Popovs, 47, has denied murdering 21-year-old Dimitris Titovs at Henley Place in London Road, Teynham, near Sittingbourne.

Maidstone Crown Court has heard there was bad feeling and violent rows between the two men before the fatal incident on January 1.

Mr Titovs, 21, went to the flats late on New Year’s Eve to see his mother Svetlana Kandate.

Prosecutor Kalyani Kaul QC said Popovs and Mr Titovs clashed in the early hours. There was then a row between Popovs and Miss Kandate, 41, inside their flat.

Fearing for his mother’s safety, she said, Mr Titovs and friends banged on the door. As Miss Kandate opened it her son fell or stumbled in.

He was stabbed and collapsed in the doorway. An ambulance was called but he died soon afterwards.

Miss Kandate told the jury that after the fatal injury was inflicted she jumped out of a window on the first floor and next recalled being in the street.

Asked why she jumped, she replied: “Dimitris said if I stayed in the flat, I would get the same as what happened to my son.”

Popovs denied through a Russian interpreter that he stabbed the victim.

The jury was sent home for the weekend on Friday and resumes its deliberations today.