Rapper Dappy 'sparked mob attack'

N-Dubz rapper Dappy sparked a "mob attack" at a petrol station when he spat at two girls who refused to get into a car with him and two friends, a court has heard.

Brian Stork, prosecuting, told the jury that Dappy, 25, charged under his real name of Costadinos Contostavlos, pulled up in a car at the Shell garage in Woodbridge Road, Guildford, Surrey at about 3.30am on February 28 last year.

He and a friend Kalonji Stewart got out of the car along with a third man. While Stewart went inside the shop, Dappy began talking to the girls, Grace Cochran and Serena Burton, who were in a group sitting on the kerb outside.

Mr Stork alleged that Dappy tried to persuade the two girls to come with them in their car and when they refused he called the girls sluts, said one was ugly and then spat at them, but missed.

A man who had just met the two girls, David Jenkins, stood up to defend them and Dappy is said to have spat at him and it made contact before swinging a punch at him and, the barrister told the court, "it all kicked off".

In the resulting "mob-handed, utterly unlawful and aggressive attack", Dappy was joined by two other men, Kieran Vassell and Alfred Miller who had arrived in a second Mercedes car with other unidentified men.

Mr Stork showed the jury CCTV footage, lasting just moments, from the garage. It showed the men attacking Mr Jenkins and his two other friends, resulting in damaged teeth to Mr Jenkins and a fractured nose to another man. They then all got into cars and drove off.

Tests on a saliva stain on Mr Jenkins's t-shirt show a DNA link to Dappy, Mr Stork said. The singer is standing trial at Guildford Crown Court and denies two counts of common assault on the two women, one of assault by beating, of Mr Jenkins, and one of affray.

He is charged alongside Vassell, 25, of Hammersmith, west London, and Stewart, 32, of Harborne, Birmingham, who are each charged with affray. Miller, 28, of Brentford, west London, has pleaded guilty to affray and his case was adjourned for sentence at the end of the trial.

Mr Stork said Dappy told police when he was arrested that he was attacked, put in a head lock, his security came to help him and he then got straight into a car. He denies spitting at anyone and said he cannot understand how his saliva came to be on Mr Jenkins's shirt.