Stabbed to death in frenzied attack
THREE drug runners launched a frenzied attack on a disabled man, who was stabbed to death with a Rambo-style knife, a murder trial was told.
The alleged murder happened after amputee Mark Swinhoe and his girlfriend, Charlotte Brown, arranged to buy heroin and cocaine.
They intended robbing the dealer when he showed up to meet them in Moira Street, Loughborough, but when three men unexpectedly arrived to do the deal they were outnumbered and the plan went terribly wrong, it was claimed.
Mr Swinhoe was allegedly dragged from the bicycle he used for mobility, after he used a homemade stun-gun to attack one of the runners, Harry Matthews.
Leicester Crown Court was told Mr Swinhoe then suffered 28 knife injuries, including a fatal 12cmdeep wound in his back – while being repeatedly kicked by all three men and beaten with his own prosthetic lower leg, which was wrenched from him, it was claimed.
Harry Matthews (22), Jamie Lloyd Wileman (24) and Paul Anthony Williams (38) all deny murdering Mr Swinhoe, 38, in the early hours of January 14.
The jury was told Matthews, of Brush Drive, Loughborough, and Wileman, of Elm Grove, Moira, have each admitted supplying heroin and cocaine between January 12 and 14.
Williams, of no fixed address, denies supplying class A drugs.
Matthews admits possessing a Rambo First Blood II knife, but denies causing actual bodily harm to Miss Brown, on the same night.
Mr House said: “The three defendants were all in it together, it was a joint enterprise.”
Mr House claimed the defendants were acting as runners for dealer Christopher Cunningham-Pithouse (24), who called himself Louis and was directing the deliveries over the phone from his home in Glebe Road, Queniborough. The jury was told that Cunningham-Pithouse has admitted supplying class A drugs and is awaiting sentence.
Charlotte Brown told the court she helplessly watched three hooded men kick, punch and stab her partner “like hyenas attacking an injured animal”.
She claimed the attackers then went away laughing as 38-year-old Mark Swinhoe lay dying on the ground. He was pronounced dead in an ambulance at the scene, after bystanders and then medics had tried to save him.
Miss Brown’s evidence was viewed on a television screen, transmitted via a live link from another room in the court building.
She said she had known Mr Swinhoe for 20 years, as both had grown up in Loughborough, and were in a relationship for about 11 weeks prior to his death.
They had taken crack-cocaine at her flat earlier that night but decided they wanted more drugs and hatched a plan for Mr Swinhoe to rob a drugs runner at a pre-arranged meeting place in Moira Street expecting him to be alone.
She said Mr Swinhoe was hiding in the alley about 10 metres away and she was unable to warn him
there were three people.
She told the jury: “I was like a rabbit caught in headlights and I didn’t know what to do. Mark came out and said ‘hello’.” She said he lurched towards one of the runners she believed was called Louie, but the tallest man grabbed her boyfriend around the neck and knocked him off the bicycle he was on.
Miss Brown said: “They bent down and started kicking and punching him all over while he was on the floor. It was like watching hyenas attacking an injured animal.
”All of a sudden I saw the blade of the knife glint in the streetlight and I saw him stabbing Mark frenziedly.
“The smaller white guy got hold of his prosthetic leg and started spinning him around, on his back, and his leg came off and he proceeded to hit Mark with it on his head.
“Mark was trying to curl up in a ball and raise his arms to defend himself.
“The taller man had Mark pinned to the floor, his knees on Mark’s hips, and was stabbing him.”
Miss Brown claimed the knifeman slashed her on the face, causing a slight cut, and she fell to the floor and curled up, fearing she would be killed.
The men allegedly went off laughing and when she went to help her boyfriend he told her “I’m dying,” but she told him “Don’t be silly, no you’re not.”
She said that after calling for an ambulance: “I could see his transfixed staring eyes, it looked like the life was going out of him.”
The trial continues.