Victim’s throat slit 6 times... but it was an accident, says accused
Claims ‘inconsistent’ with evidence, says pathologist
A SOLDIER accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend is claiming ‘a combination of self-defence and accident’, a court heard yesterday – despite her throat having been cut six times.
A Home Office pathologist said her findings were ‘inconsistent’ with Lance Corporal Trimaan Dhillon’s explanation of how Alice Ruggles died in her Gateshead flat last October.
Newcastle Crown Court was told the signaller with the Royal Highland Fusiliers (2 Scots) is claiming in his defence statement that the 24-year-old had scratched him and that he tried to restrain her in a headlock.
He says she then came at him with a carving knife and it ended up lodged in her neck.
Richard Wright, QC, prosecuting, said Dhillon, 26, had first told police he had not gone into the flat – but changed his story when it was disclosed that Miss Ruggles’s blood had been found on his Help For Heroes wristband and on the steering wheel of his BMW.
Mr Wright said Dhillon claims it was ‘a combination of self-defence and accident’.
In the statement, Dhillon denies murder but admits he was the only person with Miss Ruggles when she died. He claims they had a row in the yard, that he climbed through a window to get into the flat to find clothes belonging to him and that Miss Ruggles came at him with a carving knife.
Dhillon says he put her in a headlock and she collapsed in the bathroom, falling on some scales and cutting her nose.
He claims she grabbed the knife again when he told her he was going to meet a woman in Durham. Then she lunged at him, he says, hitting her head on the sink.
In the struggle, Dhillon claims she lost her balance and, as they came together, the momentum pushed the knife into the side of her throat. As she fell, it was pushed further in, his defence case states.
By that stage, she was bleeding heavily.
Dhillon says he then suffered a flashback to a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
He claims he tried to pull the knife out, but it was stuck at first. He heard gurgling noises and he panicked, he claims.
Dhillon, who was born in India but studied at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, then drove back to Glencorse Barracks near Penicuik, Midlothian, contemplating suicide, his statement says.
Pathologist Dr Jennifer Bolton found Miss Ruggles’s neck had been sliced or slashed at least six times, leaving a 4.7in wound that gaped 1.2in wide.
She said the blows had severed her carotid artery, windpipe and voice box and had cut through to her spine.
Miss Ruggles also suffered a deep cut to the tip of her nose and there was evidence she had been knelt on, Dr Bolton said. There were also cuts to her hands, which appeared to be defence injuries.
Miss Ruggles’s wounds were ‘unsurvivable’, the pathologist told the court.
She said the claims in Dhillon’s defence statement were ‘broadly inconsistent’ with her findings.
The case continues.
‘Tried to restrain her in a headlock’