The girlfriend of an alleged murderer told him “I love you, I’m sorry, get out the country” after he knifed a dad-of-two in the heart, a court heard.
Prosecutors say Adam Fletcher stabbed Paul Stenson in the heart outside a home on West Derby’s Princess Drive where both had been attending a party and that Susie Lee, his then girlfriend, was one of three people who tried to help him evade justice.
Fletcher is currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court and stands accused of murder and of possessing a bladed article. Lee and two of Fletcher’s friends, Demi Walsh and Nathan Finnegan are all accused of assisting an offender, while Lee also faces an additional charge of witness intimidation. The four deny the charges.
READ MORE: Stranger 'stabbed dad-of-two in the heart' after argument at party
Yesterday, Richard Pratt, QC, told the court that Fletcher stabbed Paul Stenson at a 21st birthday party on December 18, 2021, which neither were invited to by the host but both attended after friends who were there told them to come.
The men had never met before but Mr Pratt said that only hours after first coming across each other Fletcher, 28, stabbed 30-year-old Pratt after an argument inside the house escalated. He said that after both men were told to leave the house Fletcher grabbed a kitchen knife from inside before going outside, holding the knife behind his back and stabbing 30-year-old Mr Stenson through the rear left side of his chest.
Mr Pratt said an autopsy report confirmed the knife went straight through Mr Stenson’s heart, causing him to bleed to death rapidly. Opening the prosecution’s case yesterday, Mr Pratt also explained why Lee, Walsh and Finnegan all sat in the dock beside him.
He said the prosecution would aim to prove each of them played a role in impeding police from finding Fletcher. Lee, 21, was Fletcher’s girlfriend and was with him at the party. Mr Pratt said Fletcher fled immediately after the stabbing but texts between him and Lee in the hours afterwards showed she had become aware of what he had done.
One of the texts from Lee’s phone, read out in court by Mr Pratt, read: “Adam, I love you, get out the country”. In another she told him she loved him again but added “get away”.
Jurors also heard that Lee rung up Kim Williams, a witness who was at the party, and tried to intimidate her.
Mr Pratt said Ms Williams was giving her statement to a police officer when Lee rung her. Mr Pratt said: “She can be heard saying ‘youse are all f***ing chatting s*** on the group chat like I am some d***head. The lot of youse, youse are all grasses.”
Lee is also alleged to have known where Fletcher was and allowed him to use her phone, with some messages sent from it in the days after the stabbing purporting to come from him.
Lee, 21, of New Road, denies assisting an offender and intimidating a witness. Her co-defendants, Finnegan, 30, of Rosalind Way, and Walsh, 28, of Redbourn Street, both deny assisting an offender.
In Walsh’s case, Mr Pratt said she gave false information to the police suggesting another man was responsible for the stabbing while he said Finnegan was also fully aware of what Fletcher had done and helped him avoid justice anyway.
Fletcher was arrested five days after Mr Stenson died and gave multiple no comment interviews to police. Eventually he gave them a prepared statement saying that he accepted stabbing Mr Stenson but that he acted in self defence.
Mr Pratt said: "We say that is a desperate attempt to justify the unjustifiable - that he took a large knife and stabbed Paul Stenson with it."
Proceeding
