IPSWICH: A tyre-fitter accused of manslaughter after a man died following an alleged attack outside a pub told police his drinks could have been spiked.

During interviews after his arrest, Paul Dell said he had spent the evening of April 16 last year at the Smock pub, in Maidenhall Approach, celebrating a friend’s birthday.

He had drunk seven or eight pints of lager which was as much as normal on a night out.

“I would be fine on seven or eight pints,” he said. “I was having a laugh, a joke and a drink with mates.”

He said he had no recollection of punching 20-year-old Simon Cowles outside the pub and that all he could remember was being at the bar and then lying on the ground outside and being kicked and punched.

He said he suffered a cut to his head which needed seven stitches and a broken nose.

Dell said that after being taken back inside the pub, he had been shocked when a policeman told him he was being arrested, and had said: “I’ve been assaulted and I’m being arrested?”

Dell told officers: “I can’t remember laying hands on anyone let alone causing that kind of damage.

“It’s like someone put something in my drink. My head’s gone. I remember sitting at the bar having a laugh and a joke and the next thing lying in the car park.”

Dell, 44, of Discovery Avenue, Ipswich, has denied manslaughter.

It has been alleged that Dell punched Mr Cowles in the head outside the pub causing him to fall to the ground.

Although Mr Cowles, of Star Lane, Ipswich, initially got back to his feet, he had fallen back to the ground shortly afterwards and died two days later in hospital.

The trial continues today.