A MAN has told his murder trial how he only hit is victim with one punch and nothing else.

There had been no kicking or stamping and it was just the one blow that felled the man at a party only yards from last year's V music festival.

Sam Martin is accused of carrying out a "brutal and sustained attack" on victim Anton Jardin at the Chelmsford party last August.

But he told a jury on Wednesday how there had been no multiple blows during the incident.

Martin, 26, denies a charge of murder but has admitted the manslaughter of 39-year-old Mr Jardin.

He died at the scene in the garden of a house in London Road, Chelmsford, on August 19 last year.

The jury of eight women and four men have been told Mr Jardin suffered a number of injuries including a broken cheekbone, broken jaw and a broken nose during the assault.

A pathologist has told Chelmsford Crown Court the injuries were consistent with fists or kicks.

Martin, from Eastwood Road, Leigh, has told the court he had trained in mixed martial arts and had taken part in one bout in April 2009.

Prosecutor Andrew Jackson suggested Martin had used his knowledge of kicking barefoot and other apects of martial arts training in the assault on Mr Jardin.

But Martin told him this was definitely not the case and he stressed there had only ever been one punch in the attack.

The trial has heard how Mr Jardin and a man called Clint Spearpoint got into an argument at the party on August 19 and Martin intervened.

At the time, Martin said he was working for Mr Spearpoint on an air conditioning contract for London Underground and was going out with Mr Spearpoint's sister sister Georgia.

Martin has been accused of being high on a mixture of alcohol and drugs at the time of the attack on Mr Jardin.

But he told the court this was not the case as he was "relaxed" at the time.

Mr Jackson asked him what alcohol and drugs he had taken that evening.

Martin told him at the music festival earlier on he drank four double Jack Daniels whiskies with coke and a vodka and lemonade someone had "spiked" with ecstasy.

His drug taking had involved five "snorts" of cocaine and four or five puffs of cannabis from three or four cannabis cigarettes.

How were you feeling after that, Mr Jackson asked.

"I was relaxed and chilled out," Martin told him. Tests later revealed Martin had taken diazapam and he told police he was on this as he had trouble sleeping.

The trial has heard how Martin remained at the scene after the assault and helped Mr Jardin.

He gave him heart massage and mouth to mouth before paramedics appeared on the scene.

"I thought the punch may have hurt him but I did not expect it to go the way it did," Martin has told the jury.

And he has said he had no intention of killing Mr Jardin or causing him any really serious injury.

Mr Jardin, from Eastwood Road, Rayleigh, died from a tear to a vital artery in his neck led to bleeding in the brain, the court has heard.

*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.