A girl who died from a knife wound to the neck said she could “batter” the 14-year-old boy who fatally stabbed her, a court has heard.

Ava White, 12, was attacked in Liverpool city centre in November last year while going to see the Christmas lights being switched on.

A friend who was with her has been telling the jury about the run-up to the incident.

The 14-year-old said the group had shared some vodka and were “messing about” when they saw the flash of phone cameras and realised four boys, including the defendant, were recording them.

In pre-recorded evidence, she told Liverpool Crown Court that Ava pushed her off and wouldn’t back down as she asked the boys to delete the videos.

“I was saying to leave it. She was pushing me off her. She was fuming,” the girl said.

“She was like ‘he’s the same size as me, I’ll batter him’.”

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However, the girl said Ava hadn’t threatened the defendant “to his face or nothing”.

She added: “I told her not to argue because it would end up bad, and she said ‘I should be able to batter him because he’s the same height’.”

Under UK law, none of the child witnesses or the alleged killer can be named because they are too young.

The girl told police she and others in the group sat on benches while Ava, the defendant and others went round the side of a Primark shop.

She said that after a few seconds she heard screaming and said to a friend: “Oh my God, there’s murder.”

The girl told the court they went to look and saw Ava walking towards them looking “really panicked” and “trying to undo her coat”.

She cried as she recalled seeing her friend’s injuries: “We were shouting ‘someone help, call an ambulance, she’s 12 and she’s been stabbed in the neck’.”

Another friend, also 14, said she’d heard Ava shout something like “bunch of mings” as they walked behind the defendant and his group.

She agreed Ava had said something like “let’s batter them” or “let’s batter him” – but told the jury she ran over not for a fight but to get them to delete the video.

The girl said Ava had told the defendant something like “delete the video, you scruff”.

The boy denies murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter – the trial continues.

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