Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Don’t feed my obese friend ..it’ll kill him WHERE IS HE? WHERE’S THE TOUT?
Court hears fiancee relive final moments before dad shot dead in front of son
A WOMAN wept in court as she told how a gang shot her fiance dead in front of his son.
She said the gunman asked: “Where is he? Where is the f***ing tout?”
After a “loud bang”, she found Stephen Carson’s body in their Belfast home.
THE fiancee of a man who was shot dead broke down in tears yesterday as she recalled the moment a gunman burst into their home.
The 28-year-old wept as she told Belfast Crown Court she knew “something was wrong” after she saw her partner Stephen Carson lying in a downstairs bathroom following a “loud bang”.
She also described how she tried in vain to stop the intruders entering her home while trying to protect the victim’s nineyear-old son during the fatal attack in February 2016.
Giving evidence via video link from a witness room at Laganside Court Complex, the woman revealed she and Mr Carson had been together for around five years prior to his death.
She said they had got 28-year-old Stephen Carson engaged on Valentine’s Day, just days before he was killed.
The couple were in their Walmer Street home in South Belfast on February 25, 2016, along with Mr Carson’s son. She told the court her 28-year-old partner was in the kitchen and she and the boy were on the living room settee when the front door was “booted open”. The witness said: “When the first person came in I seen another couple of people behind him. There were two in the hallway and one in the garden.”
She added the first man in the living room told her and the boy to “f*** up” and kept asking, “Where is he? Where is the f***ing tout?”
The woman said at one point she had something sprayed in her face and the intruders kept asking where Mr Carson was. His son indicated he was in the kitchen area.
The witness added that after pulling a gun from the inside of his pocket, the first male pointed it at her and the child.
When asked what happened next, she broke down and said the first male “went straight down to the bathroom”.
She added: “Then I just heard a loud bang.”
The court was told that after coming back into the living room, the gunman “put the gun back in his coat” and then he and the second male “squeezed through the door and left”.
The woman said: “I checked the back door because I thought Stephen might have got out the back door, but he didn’t. The door was still locked.
“I tried to open the back door. I couldn’t open it. Then I turned my head and seen him lying there.”
Saying she saw her fiance’s legs in the bathroom first, she added she had to force the door because of the way he was lying. When asked if it was apparent to her Mr Carson was seriously injured, she replied: “Yeah. He made a grunting noise. I knew something was wrong.”
West Belfast cousins David James Francis Smith, 35, Michael Lawrence Smith, 39, both from Monagh Drive, and 42-year old Francis Gerard Patrick Smith, of Glenmurray Court, all deny murder.
Michael Smith also denies possessing a firearm with intent to commit murder, while Francis Smith has pleaded not guilty to possessing both a firearm and ammunition in suspicious circumstances.
The Crown says Michael was the gunman with David Smith the second to enter the living room. At hearing.
He made a grunting noise. I knew something was wrong STEPHEN CARSON’S PARTNER YESTERDAY