A mum who lied to police searching for the father of her child after he stabbed a man to death wept today as she was jailed.
Demi Walsh pointed the finger for Paul Stenson’s murder at an innocent man despite it being her ex partner Adam Fletcher who stabbed the dad-of-two through the heart. The 28 year old was handed an 18 month prison term at Liverpool Crown Court this afternoon, weeks after jurors found her guilty of assisting an offender.
A family member shouted “love you Dem” as a tearful Walsh was led from the dock after Judge Brian Cummings QC jailed her for her role in helping Fletcher evade justice. Moments earlier, the judge had told her she only had herself to blame for the fact her and Fletcher’s daughter would now be without her parents as both began jail terms.
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Fletcher was convicted of murder earlier this summer after stabbing Mr Stenson following an argument between the pair at a house party on Princess Drive on December 19 last year. The single knife wound he inflicted went straight through 30-year-old Mr Stenson’s heart. Fletcher maintained his actions were in self defence but jurors rejected that argument when they convicted him.
Neither Walsh nor Nathan Finnegan - Fletcher’s best friend - were at the party and neither saw Fletcher kill Mr Stenson. Yet in the hours and days that followed both responded to his cries for help and took steps to help him evade justice as Mr Stenson’s family mourned his death.
Dozens of text messages shown to jurors during the trial show Fletcher and Walsh were in contact with one another in the hours after the murder.
When interviewed by police, Walsh even pointed the finger at a friend of Mr Stenson’s who had been at the party and had tried to save his life. Speaking to officers over the phone, she played a voice note to them identifying one of Stenson’s friends as the murderer. The allegation was completely baseless - and police discounted it almost immediately, though Judge Cummings said it had the potential to have devastating consequences.
Robin Howat, defending Walsh, said she had been looking through social media in the aftermath of the attack and, concerned about Fletcher, had found the voice note and earnestly believed it was of importance rather than simply “concocting” an allegation. Judge Cummings rejected that argument, saying Walsh had acted in a way that was clearly intended to mislead the police's investigation.
She continued to be in contact with Fletcher until he was arrested on December 23, though later texts appear to show her in favour of him handing himself in to police. That did not happen as Fletcher was arrested soon after when police discovered he was hiding at Finnegan’s house. Fletcher was then charged with murder and Finnegan and Walsh were charged with assisting an offender.
Mr Howat said Walsh, who has a two year old daughter with Fletcher, had found herself “caught in the wake of a tsunami of events which she could not have foreseen” after Fletcher stabbed Stenson and reacted completely irrationally. He said the shock of the incident, combined with traumas in her own early life meant she had “acted, we would submit, in an instinctive and misguided fashion”.
Pointing to the young age of Walsh and Fletcher’s daughter, combined with Fletcher’s lengthy prison term, he appealed to Judge Cummings to hand Walsh a suspended sentence so that she could raise their daughter. Judge Cummings said it was undeniable that imprisoning Walsh would have a detrimental impact on her daughter but told her a jail term was the only suitable punishment for what she had done.
Sentencing a tearful Walsh to 18 months in prison, he said: “Miss Walsh, you are responsible for the fact that I am having to make this decision. I am afraid I see no evidence now, nor did I see any during the trial, that you had given any thought to the consequences you were exposing your daughter to by doing what you did and giving assistance to a murderer.”
Judge Cummings also jailed Finnegan, who is already serving a jail term for separate offences. However, he said he accepted his role was slightly lesser than Walsh’s and handed him a 14 month sentence. Fletcher himself will serve a minimum of 22 years in prison before being eligible for parole.
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