THE jury has gone out to consider its verdict in the case of a man accused of beating a stranger to death in a Dartford kebab shop.

Eddy Ives is on trial for manslaughter after a fatal encounter with electrician Ben Mahoney on April 12.

Mr Mahoney, 30, died from a major hemorrhage to an artery in his neck caused by a sharp twisting motion resulting from any one of a series of blows to his head, face and neck, Maidstone Crown Court has heard.

He got into a fight with Ives at the House on the Hill kebab shop in East Hill at around 11.25pm after trying to have a joke with the defendant which soon turned sour, the court was told.

Police caught up with Ives later the same night at an address in St Ronan’s View, Dartford, where he was allegedly found "hiding underneath a child's bed" before he made an odd request for police to “scratch his face” as he was being arrested, outlined by prosecutor Ian Hope.

When officers refused Ives, 29, dropped to the floor and started rubbing his face on the pavement to make it look more marked, it was claimed.

Mr Hope said: “When police didn’t scratch your face for you, you got yourself down on the floor and started rubbing your face on the pavement trying to mark your own face, Mr Ives.”

The defendant replied: “That is not true. My face was itching and I was sweating.”

Mr Hope said: “At that stage you were thinking how you were going to explain what you had done in terms of self-defence.”

Ives responded: “That is not true. I was in a bad way; I was a bundle of nerves. I am still in a bad way now.”

The defendant told jurors he was “fighting for his life” after Mr Mahoney allegedly threw the first punches in the encounter during which the pair both spat at each other, according to Ives.

He claims he left the shop after the initial fracas to avoid trouble and only went back in to fetch the doner kebab and burgers he had ordered, the court was told.

The prosecution alleges he was pushed out by terrified shop workers and other onlookers trying to keep him away from Mr Mahoney and headed straight back in to continue punching his victim after Mr Mahoney ran behind the counter to try and escape.

Ives told the court that after Mr Mahoney lay dying in the shop: “I didn’t know he was lying on the floor, I thought he went out of the back of the shop.

“If I had known he was hurt on that floor I would have helped the boy.”

Ives, of no fixed address but from the Gravesend area, denies manslaughter.

The jury have retired and a verdict is expected this afternoon.