THE blood-stained sign used to attack a Taunton student was shown to Exeter Crown Court yesterday (Wednesday).

The court heard that DNA found on the sign matched that of Andrew Betty who, with co-defendants Ross McCormack and Jay Wall, denies murdering Lloyd Fouracre.

Lloyd, 17, of Broomfield, died after the "ferocious attack" on September 25 last year as he and a group of friends left Taunton Vale Sports Club after a party.

As the prosecution continued this week forensic evidence revealed that a significant amount of hair and skin belonging to Lloyd was found on the plywood section of the sign, which had had an A4 disabled parking notice attached to it.

Forensic scientist Stephen Harrington said: "In my opinion from observations of the sign and the background information this piece of wood was used as a weapon to assault Lloyd Fouracre."

When police recovered the sign the post was found to have snapped in half.

Mr Harrington said 12 out of 18 DNA components found on the end of the detached piece of wood matched Betty.

A pair of jeans belonging to Wall were also "extensively" stained by blood matching Lloyd's DNA, the prosecution claimed.

"The blood was deposited when the wearer was facing towards and within one metre of Lloyd Fouracre when blood splattered away from him.

"The presence of the impact splattering and location of blood on the jeans supports the allegation that the wearer attacked Lloyd Fouracre when he was on the ground," the court was told.

A bike seat belonging to McCormack, also allegedly used in the attack, was found to have been saturated with water, Mr Harrington found.

He said when he examined the foam of the seat 54 days later it was still wet, though no blood was found. "If it had been saturated I would not have expected to find any blood if there had been any on it."

Lloyd's blood was not found to be on any of Betty's clothing which was seized, and Mr Harrington said there were four possible explanations for this: -That Betty had not assaulted Lloyd.

- That Betty had assaulted Lloyd, but no blood was transferred to his clothes.

- That Betty assaulted Lloyd, but the items of clothing were not worn at the time.

- That no blood was found on the clothes as it had been removed by washing.

McCormack's clothes also contained no traces of Lloyd's blood, to which similar explanations were offered.

The case continues.