Premiership: Bowyer denies being at scene of beating

Lee Bowyer has denied being at the scene of an attack in which a young Asian student was beaten up.

The 24-year-old Leeds United player has told Hull Crown Court that he had jogged away from a Leeds nightclub in pursuit of team-mate Jonathan Woodgate and his friends.

The striker said he had been hoping to join them at a lap dancing club.

But Bowyer said he then fell over and as he tried to rise got a whack on the side of his head.

He said he had been tipsy but not drunk after consuming five or six glasses of wine with other team-mates Harry Kewell and Michael Bridges before going to the Majestyk nightclub in Leeds.

He said he emerged from the club after hearing that co-accused Woodgate and his friends had had some trouble in the club, from which one of them was ejected.

Outside, he asked a doorman which way "Woody" and his friends had gone. He said he saw a figure he thought was Woodgate but because he was looking back he fell over.

Bowyer said: "I was winded at the time. As I tried to get myself together I got myself up and I was on all fours when I got a whack on the right hand side of my face. I don't know how or what sort of impact it was. I was dazed."

He said he then crossed over the road and saw Woodgate coming out of Mill Hill, where the attack on 20-year-old Sarfraz Najeib is alleged to have taken place.

But Bowyer said that at no stage had he gone into Mill Hill himself. As he crossed the road he saw a group of five or six people: "Just come running out of Mill Hill."

Bowyer, an England under-21 international of Leeds, defender Woodgate, 21, of Middlesbrough and Neale Caveney and Paul Clifford, both 21, of Middlesbrough deny causing grievous bodily harm to Mr Najeib of Rotherham, South Yorkshire. They also deny affray.

Woodgate, Caveney and Clifford, with Leeds United player Michael Duberry, 24, also plead not guilty to conspiring to pervert the course of justice after the attack in January last year.