LYRICO LAY DYING ON MY DOORSTEP
A Mum-of-three relived the minutes when stabbed teenager Lyrico Steede lay dying on her doorstep and she dialled 999 for help.
In a hushed and crowded courtroom, she told how she came down the stairs of her home in Stock Well just before 7.30pm, to realise somebody was outside.
“I went to the door, I said ‘hullo,’” she told the jury of four women and eight men at Nottingham Crown Court. A voice replied quietly: “Help me. Phone the police. I have been stabbed.”
Questioned by prosecutor Peter Joyce QC, she said: “I didn’t know if someone was trying to get access to my house to trick me. I didn’t believe it was real.
“I unlocked my phone. I dialled 999.” The recording was then played to the trial in which five young people deny the murder of Lyrico, who was 17.
She tells a phone operator: “Somebody is on my doorstep saying ‘I have been stabbed.’ I don’t know whether it is a joke or something.
“He told me ‘phone the police, I have been stabbed.’
“I am on my own with my children. It is dark outside. I tried to look through the peephole. He was pushing at the door.”
The operator asks: “Do you think he was trying to get in?”
She responds: “No, he was knocking at the door. He is telling me he is dying.”
The operator tells her: “Don’t open the door. We are getting officers to you. Ask him what his name is.”
The woman replies: “He is telling me, ‘just help me, I am dying.” He then manages to say that his name is Lyrico.
The woman can then be heard saying quietly: “Oh God, I hope he’s OK.”
She is told that police officers are on their way and she tells Lyrico: “They are coming. They will be here any second. Are you OK?”
After a few seconds, she tells the operator: “He is asking for water.”
Soon after, she says: “Oh God, he is screaming now.”
Police officers then arrived at the scene on February 13. They were followed by a paramedic and then an ambulance. Lyrico was taken to the Queen’s Medical Centre where he was given emergency treatment followed by surgery. He died five days later.
Those accused include a girl aged 16 and two 17-year-old boys who are too young to be named. The other defendants are Kasharn Campbell, 19, of no fixed address, and Remmell Campbell-miller, 18, of Sneinton Boulevard.
The trial continues on Monday.