THE sentencing of a teenage county lines drug dealer who stabbed a man to death in Skipton’s Aireville Park was today adjourned for a further probe into the danger he poses to the public.

Brooklyn Bell was cleared of murdering Simon McMinn in a wooded area of the park on the evening on July 28 last year but found guilty of his manslaughter following a trial in January.

Bell, 19, of Parkwood Rise, Keighley, was produced before Bradford Crown Court at 9.30am this morning on a video link to HMP Doncaster where he is locked up pending sentence.

Judge Jonathan Rose, the trial judge, further adjourned the case until June 20 for psychological and psychiatric reports to be prepared.

The reports, commissioned by the court, will examine whether Bell is dangerous within the meaning of the legislation and look into his cognitive and social functioning from the age of 16.

Bell, who will remain in custody until the next hearing, was also due to be sentenced  for a Section 18 GBH committed in Bournemouth in 2019 when he stabbed a man in the back.

During the trial, Bell said he was defending himself when he stabbed Mr McMinn to death.

He told the jury that Mr McMinn, 44, pointed a knife at him and tried to steal his drug dealing cash. Bell said he was scared and intimidated after he shouted loudly at him and threatened him.

He told the court he had taken the train from Keighley to Skipton with around £400 of heroin and crack cocaine to sell to addicts in the town.

His drugs boss was also ‘building a coke line’ in Skipton he said and he was testing the market.

He met Mr McMinn and his friend at the top end of the park to sell them drugs.

Bell said Mr McMinn, who the jury heard was 17 stone, produced a knife and pointed it at him while trying to pick up banknotes that had fallen from Bell’s bag.

Bell said he punched Mr McMinn in the face and he dropped up the knife.

When Mr McMinn punched him again, he stabbed him.

“I was protecting myself,” he said. “The first time I stabbed him it had no effect on him so that’s why I stabbed him again.”

Mr McMinn was stabbed three times, once in the shoulder and twice in the back.

Bell ran away after gathering up as much of the dropped money as he could quickly find.

He went to Keighley and then by train Huddersfield, handing himself into the police there three days later.

He went to Huddersfield Police Station after being told that the police were looking for him in Keighley and Huddersfield.

The court has heard that he was on police bail at the time for stabbing a man in Bournemouth in August, 2019. The 54-year-old victim suffered a collapsed lung after Bell stabbed him three times in the back with a flick knife he had in his pocket.

He ran up behind him in an alleyway and stabbed him three times in what he agreed was a revenge attack.

Afterwards, Bell tapped lyrics into his phone that said: “Man got splashing. I left that crime scene happy.”

Today, Bell’s barrister, Christopher Tehrani QC, said the teenager had agreed to co-operate with the preparation of the reports.

Mr Tehrani suggested that the psychological report be prepared first and then examined by a forensic psychiatrist to draw conclusions for the sentencing hearing.