Girl in hospital after horror blaze
Court hears witness claim accused boasted of knifing
A GIRL was rushed to hospital after a terrifying fire at a block of flats yesterday.
Flames ripped through the property in Dumbarton at 10.40am as fire crews, police and ambulances raced to the scene.
Residents were evacuated and three other people suffered smoke inhalation.
A police spokesman said enquiries into the fire were continuing.
A MURDER accused on trial for stabbing a man to death was heard saying, “I’m glad I killed him, he’s a d**k”, a court was told yesterday.
Robbie Smullen is accused of murdering Barry Dixon, 22, who died in hospital after being stabbed in the heart.
His mother, Mary Smullen, 46, is in the dock alongside him accused of trying to cover up his alleged involvement.
Both deny the charges against them and Robbie Smullen, 23, has lodged a special defence of self-defence at his trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Brian Henderson told the jury how he’d been at his partner’s home a few doors away from Mary’s Smullen’s address in Perth on June 3, 2019.
The 48-year-old said Robbie Smullen came to the door and seemed “stressed out, agitated”, saying: “I think I’ve killed someone, I think I’ve killed someone.”
Brian said his partner went with Smullen to his mother’s nearby home and he followed. He said: “I walked in. (Robbie Smullen’s) mum was battering him and saying, ‘What did you do that for?’”
Brian said he saw Smullen “out of his clothes” and wearing “just his boxers”.
People were in the kitchen, he said, and he went into the hall where he heard more talking. Brian said: “He was going on about the boy he killed saying, ‘I’m glad I killed him, he’s a d**k’ or something to that effect.”
Barry was found badly injured at the flat of Shannon Beattie – Robbie Smullen’s “on-off ” partner – in the city’s Tulloch area on June 4 2019.
Brian told how a group, including Mary Smullen, had left her home in a car while he and his partner remained behind with Robbie Smullen.
He said: “(Robbie) was wanting to escape. He was getting really paranoid.”
In his police statement from June 7, 2019, which was read to the jury, Brian said the group returned in the car and Robbie Smullen asked: ‘Is he dead?’
The trial continues.