Villagers helped ‘polite and calm’ strangers

One friendly villager even gave them a lift to the train station

21:59, 04 Feb 2026Updated 22:32, 04 Feb 2026

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Danny Cahalane(Image: Funeral Notices)

A jury heard witness statements from residents in a quiet Wiltshire village who unwittingly offered help to two 'very polite' men who had just carried out an alleged acid attack on a Plymouth man, leaving him with fatal injuries.

The trial of ten people - seven men from London and three women from Plymouth - continued today (February 4) at Winchester Crown Court. Seven of the ten are accused of 38-year-old Danny Cahalane's murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter.

Lead prosecutor Joanna Martin KC previously told the jury that Danny - who died on May 3, 2025 following an attack on his home in Lipson Road, Plymouth in the early hours of February 21, 2025 - was a "drug dealer in Plymouth who owed a large amount of money to another drug dealer further up the chain of command".

Danny admitted to police he had also gambled with the profits, including money which was meant to have gone to a drugs boss, named in court as Ryan Kennedy, also known as 'Frost'. The court has previously been told that Frost, from London, is believed to currently be in Dubai.

The jury were again shown CCTV and dashcam footage taken from a number of locations following the alleged attack in Lipson Road.

This included Highway Patrol footage of a Renault Arkana car seemingly abandoned on the M4 a few hours after the Plymouth incident. Further footage showed two men appearing to throw items into nearby roadside undergrowth.

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Police on scene guard following acid attack incident in Lipson Road, Plymouth(Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)

The jury were told that Devon and Cornwall Police[1] officers later scoured that undergrowth and retrieved two cloned or false number plates which the prosecution said were connected with the car seen near the home of Danny Cahalane on the night he was attacked.

Forensic examination of the plates identified a finger print belonging to one of the defendants, Brian Kalemba.

The jury were told the abandoned Renault Arkana was the same vehicle used by the two men who allegedly attacked Danny in his home - Kelvin Asante and Israel Augustus.

Asante and Augustus were later captured on dashcam and residents' CCTV walking in the rain along a number of country lanes, heading towards the village of Grittleton. At one point one of the men, which the jury were told was Asante, asked a resident for a charger for their solitary phone which had gone flat.

That resident - whom Plymouth Live is not naming - later told police he had been putting out refuse and heard voices.

He then saw two men he described as black, one of whom had long dreadlocks and appeared to be in his late 20s, wearing a black tracksuit.

The resident noted that one of the men - Asante, who had allegedly thrown two containers worth of acid over Danny - had one white sock on his left foot and no sock on his right foot.

The jury had previously seen messages sent to Augustus' phone which appeared to give instructions on how to to use water to wash away acid - "10 litres of water bro, at least, stop and let driver pour it on you".

The resident said it looked like the man had bright red foam on his left trainer and around the left pocket of his tracksuit bottoms. The resident reported being asked about a phone charger as they had to ring the AA due to a car break-down.

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Police on scene guard following acid attack incident in Lipson Road, Plymouth(Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)

The resident told police the second male - who he described as 6ft, of slimmer build, with dreadlocks but had his hood up - but who had been standing back, approached. The resident said he went inside to get the charger but when he came out the first male told him not to worry as they were "going to get a Travelodge" and left.

A female motorist said she saw the two males walking along the country lane and that they looked "out of place", particularly as they were not dressed in "country attire", in that they were wearing black tracksuits and trainers.

She said they were not walking a dog and did not acknowledge her presence "which is common in this area".

A female resident told police that Grittleton was a "quiet village where everyone notices anything unusual". She explained that on the morning of Friday, February 21, she had seen a message on the village community WhatsApp about two black men on the outskirt of the village asking for a phone charger. Over the next few hours there were more comments from residents who had spotted them.

They checked their own Ring doorbell footage which had captured the men walking up to their home before leaving, the court heard.

She told police that later that day she was driving about two and a half miles from her home along the Fosse Way and saw the same two men, walking along the country lane.

She told police: "I thought 'I'm going to ask what they're doing'.

I pulled up alongside them, winding my window down. They were on my passenger side and stood a bit back from the vehicle, but still quite close. The weather[2] was awful, it'd been raining pretty hard.

"I asked what they were doing and they said they'd broken down and the car had gone off with the driver and the AA and that there wasn't space for them so they had been told to walk to the service station which was three miles away, and call a taxi.

"It seemed a bit odd.

I presumed they'd broken down on the motorway. It's not uncommon for this to happen and we often have people come with jerry cans.

"They were very polite and seemed really normal. They didn't seem suspicious or on edge.

They were very calm and explained what they were doing. I suggested they went to the Neeld Arms, a local pub, to call a taxi."

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The Neeld Arms, in Grittleton(Image: Google Street View)

She said that one of the males had his hood up and she "suggested he take his hood down when they go to the pub, and he laughed". She told police the men "stood out like a sore thumb".

She added: "They seemed like such genuinely nice guys."

The two men later did enter the Neeld Arms pub where they again asked for a phone charger and directions.

Another female resident, who was having a lunch meal with her partner, said they "looked lost" and she had beckoned them into the pub after seeing them outside in the rain.

She had engaged the men in conversation. She told police the men said they had broken down and a recovery vehicle did not have enough space for the pair of them, only the driver.

She said the barman did not have the right kind of charger, but she remembered she did in the couple's car which was parked outside. As her partner went to get it, one of the men said "that's really kind of you, us shady looking characters".

They then used the charger as she returned to her table.

Her partner told police he offered to drive them to Chippenham rail station and they accepted, thanking him.

He took them and on the way engaged them in conversation. He said he asked the larger of the two men - believed to be Asante - what he did for a living.

The larger man replied that "a friend of his had a business which was successful and he wanted to follow on and be an entrepreneur".

The partner said the man asked if he had any advice for him, telling police it was a "relaxed conversation". He explained that he drove them into the train station car park and dropped them off, directing them towards the ticket office.

He said the larger male was "polite" and thanked him for dropping them off.

The jury were later a series of CCTV clips showing the men leaving the station, and walking to a nearby car park in front of a PureGym business in Chippenham where an Uber car picked them up and drove them to London, at a cost of GBP173.51.

The jury were shown a series of phone messages found by police, which suggested that other members of the alleged organised crime group had arranged for the Uber car to pick them up.

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(Image: Google Street View)

Further messages suggested that tickets were then sought to take Asante the next day (February 22, 2025) by taxi - at a cost of GBP550 - from London to Holyhead ferry port in North Wales, which connects to Dun Laoghaire port in Dublin, Ireland.

A total of 10 defendants - seven men from London and three women from Plymouth - are on trial, with seven of these accused of Mr Cahalane's murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter, on May 3, 2025.

They are Paris Wilson, 35, of The Quay, Plymouth; Jude Hill, 43, of Wantage Gardens, Plymouth; Abdulrasheed Adedoja, 23, of Neasden, London; Ramarnee Bakas-Sithole, 23, of Islington, London; Israel Augustus, aged 26, of Tottenham, London; Isanah Sungum, 22, of Edmonton, London; and Brian Kalemba, 23, of Barking, London.

Five of the defendants are charged with the attempted kidnapping and attempted grievous bodily harm of Mr Cahalane on January 19 2025, at The Quay in Oreston, Plymouth.

They are Adedoja, Bakas-Sithole and Wilson, along with Jean Mukuna, 23, and Arrone Mukuna, 25, both of Camden, London.

All ten deny the charges.

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The trial continues

References

1. ^ Devon and Cornwall Police (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
2. ^ weather (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)