A TERRIFIED teenager thought he was “going to die” while allegedly being robbed of his bicycle at knifepoint on a Carlisle street.

The 17-year-old gave stranger Stanley Wood a “backie” on his £500 Voodoo bike from the city centre to Denton Holme just before 4am last August 3. He told Carlisle Crown Court he initially refused an offer from 19-year-old Wood to swap it for cocaine worth £200.

While cycling, he asked Wood if he’d had a good night. “He just replied saying (he’d) stolen bikes in the past and ‘I’ve been in a young offenders’ (institute).” And, said the teen, “that he’d stabbed someone and took his bike off him”.

Wood directed him to Westmorland Street where, the teen said: “He pulled me off my bike and slammed me down on the floor.”

He claimed Wood produced a knife. “He put it up to my neck,” said the teen, who was “terrified”, “like I was going to die or something”. He also claimed Wood, before riding off, “fish-hooked” the side of his mouth open and forced down a substance which tasted like cocaine and made him “dizzy”.

Wood, previously of Biverfield Road, Prudhoe, admits stealing the bike but denies robbery and is on trial.

During cross-examination, the theft victim denied a suggestion, made by Wood’s barrister, that he was lying about force being used and other elements of his account.

Opening the case, prosecutor Denise Fitzpatrick had told jurors: “Stanley Wood now accepts that he stole (the teen’s) bike, and his identity is not in dispute.

“Stanley Wood denies using force to steal. He denies throwing anything into (the teen’s) mouth. He denies holding a knife to the side of his neck. He denies producing a knife.”

Judge Nicholas Barker said to the jury: “That’s going to be the issue you’re wrestling with in this case: can the prosecution make you sure that force was used or threatened?” The trial continues.