A MAN was beaten to death in a drug-and-drink fuelled attack at a party following last year’s V Festival, a court heard.

Anton Jardin, 39, from Eastwood Road, Rayleigh, was being punched, kicked and stamped on, a jury heard.

Sam Martin, 26, of Eastwood Road, Leigh, is accused of the violence while high on a cocktail of drink and drugs.

Martin is said to have stepped in and attacked Mr Jardin because he was rowing with one of his friends.

A jury was told how Mr Jardin was left dead in the back garden of the house in Chelmsford last August. There was nothing paramedics could do for him when they arrived. He died a short while later.

Medical experts later found 19 separate injuries, including a broken jaw and broken cheekbone.

Andrew Jackson, prosecuting, told the court: "This was a brutal, sustained attack arising from no more than a mundane exchange of words between the victim and a friend of the defendant."

Martin denies murdering Mr Jardin, but has admitted a charge of manslaughter.

The trial continues.

*Clint Spearpoint, 34, Kelso Close, Rayleigh, denied the murder charge and was cleared after the prosecution offered no evidence against him at an earlier hearing.