Calwell man Alexander Raymond Iacuone, Alexander James Duffy, of Curtin, and a third man, who cannot be named because he was 17 at the time, are accused of conspiring to murder the teenager in November 2008.

It is alleged they plotted to kill the victim, who was aged 17, with a baseball bat and assaulted and chased him through Tuggeranong bushland at night.

All three are charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

During the first day of the trial in the ACT Supreme Court, the victim said he was barefoot when he left his home in the early hours of November 18, 2008.

He was walking into a nearby park to console the third defendant about a recent break-up when he saw two people approaching in the darkness, one of whom was carrying a bat.

He told the court he started running, climbing over a barrier onto Athllon Drive before heading into the reservoir area where Duffy followed him. ‘‘I was begging him to leave me alone,’’ the alleged victim said.

Duffy left but the victim said he was then approached by the unnamed defendant and Iacuone, who was armed with a bat.

‘‘They told me to get on my knees and put my hands on my head,’’ he said. ‘‘I was just pleading.’’ The victim said Iacuone tried to grab him and then wrapped his arms around the victim’s throat, choking him while the then-juvenile defendant began ‘‘laying into me with the baseball bat’’.

He said the unnamed defendant continued to hit him with the baseball bat until the victim fell down the steep incline, rolling and hitting the water below before ‘‘crawling and running’’ through the bushland.

The court heard the alleged victim eventually emerged from the scrub and was taken in by a nearby resident, who called the police.

In an opening statement, Crown prosecutor Shane Drumgold described the high degree of preparation involved in the lead-up to the incident, which left the victim ‘‘exhausted, injured and traumatised’’.

He said police officers arrived at the house and took the victim to his home, where they spotted a car being driven by Duffy.

They intercepted the car and arrested the five people inside.

A later search of the vehicle allegedly found a mattock, a shower curtain spread out in the boot and a shovel on the back seat.

Iacuone’s lawyer said there had been threats made against his client by the victim, adding that his client perhaps wanted to ‘‘bash him, but not kill him’’ in order to stop the threats.

During cross-examination, he said his client had been threatened by the victim during an earlier incident at the Tuggeranong Hyperdome. He also attributed the ‘‘serious accusation’’ of stealing an iPod to the rift in the pair’s friendship.

Duffy’s lawyer, James Sabharwal, also made a short statement to the jury while the third defence lawyer, James Lawton, said it was up to the jury to decide if this was really conspiracy to murder or just a ‘‘bunch of teenagers talking big in front of each other’’.

The trial, before Justice John Burns, resumes on Tuesday.