A jury has been told a friend of Bobby Medcraft's armed himself with a battle axe and a knife after getting into a social media fight with one of the five people accused of allegedly murdering Mr Medcraft.
Mr Medcraft died after an alleged altercation in a street in Burnie in Tasmania's north-west in the early hours of March 29, 2020.
Five people — Cody Sheehan, Lucas Ford, Michael Hanlon, Geoffrey Deverell and Kelsey Ford — are on trial in the Supreme Court in Launceston charged with his murder. All have pleaded not guilty.
Mr Medcraft's friend, Luke Buckley told the court he was intoxicated when he tried to add another friend on Snapchat, sending him a message saying "what's up c***?"
Mr Buckley said that was just how he and his friends spoke, but the message was accidentally sent to one of the co-accused, Lucas Ford.
"Lucas took it the wrong way and things escalated from there," Mr Buckley told the court.
He said he'd "never heard of" Mr Ford before this "unfriendly" exchange.
The jury was shown screenshots of Snapchat and Facebook messages between Mr Buckley and Mr Ford arranging to fight each other.
In one message, Mr Buckley gives Mr Ford an address in West Ulverstone opposite where he lived at the time.
"I was under the impression there was a carload of people coming towards my house so I gave them the wrong address," Mr Buckley testified.
In another message, Mr Ford said "lock your doors".
Mr Buckley sent messages urging Mr Ford to show up, but when he didn't after a couple of hours, sent another message saying "I guess I'll have to find you … thought you wasn't such a b****."
"You're all talk, no f***ing show."
The jury was also played a short voice memo from Mr Buckley to Mr Ford, calling him "a f***ing dog".
Mr Buckley testified he was picked up by a person who was designated to be a driver and taken to Burnie with Mr Medcraft and two of his friends looking for Mr Ford to "bash him".
Mr Buckley, Mr Medcraft and two other friends met the five co-accused at Thorne Street that evening, but the disturbance was diffused by police.
Two hours later, the second and fatal altercation took place in Ritchie Street, where Mr Buckley was not present.
'I know how it sounds'
Mr Buckley was heavily cross-examined by the lawyers defending the five co-accused, each of which are represented separately.
He told the court he couldn't recall a number of the night's events because he'd had "close to a litre of whiskey".
Cody Sheehan's lawyer, Greg Richardson suggested because the friend he was trying to contact had a completely different username, Mr Buckley deliberately sent the message to Mr Ford.
The court heard Mr Ford's girlfriend had also sent messages to Mr Buckley that night, urging him to stop the fighting.
"You were interested in her as an attractive young woman," Mr Richardson said.
"It's supposed to be just pure chance that you typed the wrong letter and contacted her partner?"
Mr Buckley said he wasn't interested in Mr Ford's partner and while he knew how it sounded, he genuinely made a typo.
The jury was also told about a 60-centimetre battle axe and serrated knife that Mr Buckley took with him from Ulverstone to Burnie.
"It was obvious you were taking weapons to the place where there was going to be a bashing of Lucas Ford," Mr Richardson said.
Mr Buckley agreed but was adamant he never took them out of the car.
Mr Ford's lawyer, Kirsten Abercromby, alleged the purpose of taking the weapons was to use them against her client as a group, but Mr Buckley said that was incorrect.
The lawyer representing Kelsey Ford, Fran McCracken, said it was curious Mr Buckley could so vividly remember not taking the weapons out of the car but couldn't recall if he stole property from Mr Ford's house earlier that night.
"So that's one example of you very clearly recollecting something that paints you in a positive light, but very fuzzy about something that paints you in a negative light," Ms McCracken told the court.
The trial is expected to take six weeks.
