A woman accused of murder threw a Subway sandwich at her boyfriend and kicked him in the face, a trial has heard.
The trial of Emma Walsh - who fatally stabbed her partner Gary Morgan in the heart at her home in Everton - resumed at Liverpool Crown Court today, Tuesday. On the third day of evidence, the deceased's dad described further allegations of domestic abuse his son had suffered at the defendant's hands - which also included a previous knife attack and leaving him drunk and asleep in a hotel lift.
James Morgan said from the witness box that the 36-year-old was initially "very happy" after meeting his new girlfriend in March 2021. But after a "couple of weeks", he and wife Sandra began to notice a string of injuries that Gary had suffered.
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Mr Morgan told the jury: "We just witnessed the odd couple of things, a black eye and that. He always had an excuse for it.
"He had bruises on his side. He had a black eye on one side, and then a couple of weeks later he had one on the other side.
"The first black eye, he said Emma's dad had opened the cupboard door and he walked into it. The second one he blamed the dog, it had scratched him when he was playing with it."
On one occasion in summer 2021, Gary was getting changed at his parents' home when his father noticed "bruises all down one of his sides". Mr Morgan said on the stand: "How he explained that, he told me he'd slept on an air bed and it had gone down in the middle of the night.
"I said to him, you wouldn't get bruises like that from an air bed - I said 'it looks like someone has been hurting you'. He said 'behave yourself'."
Mr Morgan recounted that Gary, from Prescot, had been due to stay at a hotel with 31-year-old Walsh one night but drunkenly fell asleep in the lift. He had apparently been "going up and down in the lift all night".
When he woke up, he had no shoes on and left in a taxi "under the impression Emma was with some lads they had been speaking to the night before". Gary then confessed to his mum and dad that he was being abused.
Mr Morgan said: "He started telling us all the black eyes were caused by her. That's when it all come out, he was telling us that she was beating him every time they went out."
Gary told his parents at this point that Walsh had previously attacked him with a butter knife and a broken dinner plate at the home where she lived with her dad on Lavan Close. Mr Morgan remembered: "There was a time she had a butter knife and tried to stab him with that.
"I didn't find out about that until the night he fell asleep in the lift. He said she attacked him with a butter knife all of a sudden, he didn't tell me what it was over.
"He told us she smashed a plate and tried to slice his cheek with the plate. She was aiming for his neck, that's what he told me.
"We didn't know what was happening to Gary, it was after the hotel he told us. My stomach was turning over, the way he was getting beaten.
"I was nearly sick over it. He said a lot about the way she was acting, she kept on checking his phone."
Mr Morgan said that he and others had advised Gary to end the relationship "but he wouldn't listen, he loved her". In December last year, both he and Walsh stayed over at the witness' home while his wife was in hospital.
The pair went out to get food, but a conflict arose after they returned to the property. Mr Morgan said: "I heard a ruckus in the living room, I heard her shouting at him and Gary shouting at her."
He then entered the room and witnessed Gary bending down to pick up a Subway sandwich, which he believed had been thrown at him. As he did so, Mr Morgan saw Walsh kick his son in the head - describing her face as "scrunched up as though she really wanted to hurt him".
The dad-of-six said in court: "That was the only time I ever seen her attack him. As soon as she seen me, she started crying."
Mr Morgan said he was aware that Gary had been charged with assaulting Walsh, "but they'd acquitted it or stopped it". He said that he did not ask his son for any further information over the incident which led to this.
Kerry Toner, the daughter of Gary's brother Paul's long-term partner Diane Harvey, also gave evidence this afternoon. She said she had seen the man who she described as an "uncle figure" with injuries "on more than one occasion".
Mr Morgan told her that he had suffered one black eye after "Emma had kicked off". On June 6 last year, he went to stay with his brother and his family after an "altercation" between the two.
Ms Toner said: "He had a cut that was about half an inch to an inch on his eyebrow. He had blood on his face and his t-shirt - he'd explained that Emma had been kicking off again and she'd been swinging a spirit level at him until it hit him in the face."
Gary was told he should have the wound checked out in hospital, but Ms Toner said: "He kept saying 'no, it was fine'. He had scratch marks all over his body and bite marks over his arms and chest.
"It wasn't a disagreement or argument, it was a full on attack. I was concerned he would end up being killed or end up retaliating and end up in jail."
Ms Toner said that Mr Morgan went to their house on another occasion after "Emma had tried to hit him with a rake". She said: "She had been swinging it at him and he'd ducked, and it had left marks over the back of his shoulders."
"I recommended he not go back to the relationship, I saw it as an abusive relationship in which he was the victim. He would say he was done and he couldn't help her any more, but inevitably he always went back to her."
Meanwhile, Paul Morgan said of the June 6 incident: "Emma had hit him over the head with a spirit level after he'd finished flagging a garden. He'd done some work for her family."
He described his brother's injury as a "big open gash to the side of his head". Mr Morgan added: "He just wouldn't take going the hospital as an answer."
Of the butter knife incident, Mr Morgan said: "I just remember him saying 'she's tried to stab me in the neck'. I told him to start documenting it, because it would only end in tears."
Paul said he saw Gary with black eyes "multiple times" and would sometimes not attend jobs as part of his landscaping business as he did not want customers to see these injuries. He told the jury: "He was ashamed of it really, he didn't really want to go into it.
"I'd always ask, and he'd just say 'I don't know, she's mad'. There was a bit of a pattern of every two or three weeks."
Neither Ms Toner or Paul Morgan said they had been aware of Gary's arrest in relation to an attack on Walsh. Janet Birkbeck was also called to give evidence after witnessing an altercation between a man and a woman while waiting for a bus on Queen Square in Liverpool city centre at around 7pm on March 26.
She described how the woman verbally abused and swore at the man before punching him and grabbing his throat and twisting. Ms Birkbeck called the police before getting on her bus.
The witness was then shown footage taken from a the body worn camera of a police officer who attended the scene in the immediate aftermath and spoke to Walsh and Mr Morgan. However, she did not appear to believe they matched the man and woman she had seen involved in the incident.
Walsh left the dock crying when this video was played to the court. The clip ended with the couple hugging, before being instructed by the police to go their separate ways.
The trial previously heard that they had watched a Liverpool FC game on the television in the Belmont pub on April 10 this year before returning to the bungalow on Lavan Close, where Walsh plunged a kitchen knife into Mr Morgan's chest. She initially told emergency services that he had arrived at the address with the injury after being attacked by "some fella in town" but later confessed that she had stabbed him, claiming to have done so in self-defence.
A brief statement penned by Police Constable Louise Ryder, who attended the scene on the night in question, was read out to the court. In it, she described how Walsh was "crying and shouting inside the address to her dad and a male called Gary" while she also noticed that the washing machine was on "mid-cycle".
Home Office pathologist Dr Jonathan Medcalf, who carried out the post-mortem investigation, was also called to give evidence. He noted "three incised wounds" - one of which was a "superficial" cut, while another stab wound had been inflicted "to the back of the lower half of the left upper arm" and was around 1.8cm deep.
The fatal blow was suffered to the left side of the chest, below and to the side of the left nipple. This measured 2cm on the surface of the skin but was around 6.5cm deep and "penetrated through the skin, soft tissue and ribs" before passing through the left lung and into the heart.
Mr Morgan was also noted to have "very minor bruises to the top of the head", a "feint" minor scar to the left eyebrow, bruising and an abrasion to his lips which "may well be related to medical intervention" plus several pre-existing "healing linear scratches" to the hands. Several of his ribs had been broken during CPR attempts, although it is believed that one fracture may have been caused by the fatal stabbing.
Dr Medcalf said: "The most significant external finding was the presence of three incised wounds - the third was the fatal injury, and was a deep stab wound to the left side of the chest. Such wounds typically result in rapid collapse."
He said that these injuries were "entirely compatible" with being inflicted by a bloodstained knife found in the kitchen sink - which was shown to the jury today. Walsh had earlier claimed that Mr Morgan had been injured after falling onto a broken piece of plastic from a speaker he was alleged to have smashed, but Dr Medcalf concluded: "I do not believe it could have been caused by the broken piece of plastic - it was too large, too broad."
The doctor said there were no "classical incised defence-type injuries". But it was "certainly possible" that the stab wound to the arm was sustained when "attempting to avoid or block the blade".
A "high concentration" of alcohol and "evidence of cocaine use" was found during toxicology tests. Dr Medcalf added: "This man's death was clearly a result of the deep stab wound to the chest - overall, given all the features, I believe a moderate degree of force was probably involved in the fatal wound in this case."
Dr Medcalf said he had not been aware of any metal plates fitted in Mr Morgan's head. The court previously heard that he had told his cousin he had these inserted in his jaw due to a previous injury unrelated to Walsh, but claimed "she usually goes for that".
Meanwhile, one juror was discharged of her duties by the Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC this morning after testing positive for Covid-19. This leaves a panel of six men and five women.
Walsh denies one count of murder. The trial continues, and is expected to continue into next week.
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