A dump truck driver told a jury he was stunned to see a man attacked with a machete and hoe in the back of his vehicle.

Victim Kuma Smith, 30, has previously described leaping into a moving truck in a bid to escape his attackers. However, they allegedly stopped the truck and chopped him in the head and arm, as well as cutting off one of his fingers. Howard Hayward, said in evidence at Supreme Court on Friday: ?I couldn?t believe it was happening. It was like a movie, but the real thing.?

Harron Lee Powell Evans, 31, Akono Shakir Parsons, 24, and Davon Michael Marson, 29, are accused of attempted murder.

The Prosecution allege that Marson attacked Mr. Smith from behind with a machete in the Deepdale area of Devonshire on January 5, 2005, chopping him in the shoulder and head and hitting his helmet.

After the victim punched him, the other two defendants are alleged to have joined in and rushed Mr. Smith, who ran away.

The jury has heard Evans and Parsons pursued him on motorbikes and he jumped into the back of a moving truck to escape.

The pair are said to have stopped this vehicle and attacked Mr. Smith in the back of it with a machete and hoe.

Mr. Smith?s left ?pinkie? finger was cut off and his arm broken. After this, Evans and Parsons are accused of causing damage to a motorcycle the victim had been riding. Mr. Hayward, from Pembroke, explained he is a self-employed contractor who does landscaping and similar work.

He was driving his dump truck east on Parsons Road at about 2.30 p.m. on January 5 last year, he said, when ?a gentleman ran out across the front of the truck, then alongside of the truck, and then back in front of the truck. He said: ?He banged on the driver?s door, and then he jumped into the back and said ?go, go, go!?. He was frightened, and looked scared.?

Mr. Hayward said by the time this man got into the back of the truck ? in the vicinity of Jamaican Grill ? a bike had been thrown down in front of his vehicle. He told the jury two men rode this bike from the east on Parsons Road, with one going to the left of the truck and one to the right.

Mr. Hayward said one picked up a hoe that had been in his truck and started swinging it in the back. ?The truck was shaking and stuff,? said Mr. Hayward, who said he looked back through a small window in his cab and saw a scuffle in the back of the truck.

He said he believed the victim was hit with the hoe in the forehead area. He also told the jury he saw the man put his hand up to try to block a machete. ?I only saw the machete coming down,? he said, explaining there were ?bodies moving all about?.

He said he had seen some other weapons in the truck but he could not identify what. He said a lot of people appeared along the sidewalks but ?as soon as they came they disappeared?.

Mr. Hayward went on to describe how the man who first got into the truck went out of it ?head first? and started running while he managed to manoeuvre the vehicle and drive off. ?I got nervous and took off,? he explained. He later described seeing two men chopping the black or dark grey bike.

Earlier, Crown witness Mia Simons, who has previously described witnessing part of the incident during a visit to her aunt in One Way Deepdale, concluded her testimony. She knew the accused men from Deepdale and Mr. Smith because he was her father?s godchild.

Rick Woolridge Jr., representing Parsons, put it to her that much of her evidence was untrue. She denied this, but agreed that the victim was like a cousin to her, and said she guessed she would do ?anything to support him?. She began to cry when quizzed further about their close relationship, but went on to deny discussing the incident with Mr. Smith before the trial.

Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney later asked her: ?Would you lie for him??

She replied: ?No, I wouldn?t.?