DRUG ADDICT ADMITS KILLING HIS GIRLFRIEND
ADRUG addict has admitted killing his solicitor girlfriend, who died after suffering a number of injuries at their home in Swansea.
Alison Farr-Davies, 42, who was said to have a problem with illicit street drugs, was found dead at the flat on September 13 last year.
Yesterday at Swansea Crown Court, Dean Jones, 38, admitted manslaughter. He had previously denied murder and entered the plea to the alternative charge on the day his trial was due to begin.
Judge Keith Thomas discharged the jury and said: “We were about to embark on a murder trial, then at the eleventh hour it was indicated that the defendant may be minded to admit the unlawful killing of Alison Farr-Davies without the intent to kill her.
“There was no direct evidence as to how she came by her death. The evidence that would have been presented to you would have been background evidence, circumstantial evidence. The prosecution, because of the circumstantial nature of the case, finds that to be an acceptable plea.”
Sarah Elliott QC, representing Jones, of Neath Road, Hafod, Swansea, said: “The defendant was a drug addict of long standing and was in a condition of significant withdrawal and was taking a large quantity of medication to manage that withdrawal.”
The court heard Ms Farr-Davies, who was born in Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, qualified as a solicitor in 2001 and practised in Cardiff and cities in England.
Prosecutor Christopher Quinlan QC said her life was “not one of complete happiness” and that she had a problem with taking illicit street drugs.
Mr Quinlan said that if Ms FarrDavies had managed to beat her drug problem, by mid- to late 2015 “it had taken hold of her again”.
The court heard she told her sister, Esme Louise Staples, that she intended to enter rehab in Liverpool but she ended up returning to South Wales and began living in Swansea, where she “fatally” met Jones.
Mr Quinlan said Ms Farr-Davies later told her sister that Jones found her sleeping rough on the streets of the city and they moved into the flat in Neath Road together and started a relationship.
Jones, a long-term Class A drug and heroin user, had a criminal record which included offences of serious violence such as causing grievous bodily harm with intent to do so, the court heard. Ms Staples saw them together on August 15, when they went to a Harvester pub – the last time she saw her sister.
Mr Quinlan said their last contact was on September 6, when Ms Staples put money in Ms Farr-Davies’ bank account. He then described how a number of witnesses, both passers-by and neighbours, saw Ms Farr-Davies the weekend before her body was discovered.
On September 11, one man saw her outside the flats smoking a cigarette and thought she looked unhappy. The following day a witness saw her looking thin, struggling to open the door and surrounded by items of clothing on the pavement.
One woman saw her “dragging herself along” the pavement and a man thought he saw her being thrown or pushed from the property.
At around 4.30pm on September 12 a neighbour went to investigate after hearing the sound of what she thought was a person falling down the stairs. Mr Quinlan said she peered through the letterbox and saw Ms Farr-Jones sitting on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.
He said Jones appeared and told the neighbour that there “was nothing wrong” and promised to call an ambulance, but did not do so for “an appreciable time thereafter”.
Later that day Jones was in another neighbour’s flat asking for money.
“He was clucking – the street term for withdrawing from heroin,” said Mr Quinlan. “He said he needed it for himself and for his girlfriend, that she was in a bad way. She had a cut to her head.”
Mr Quinlan said it was not until the following day that the alarm was raised when Jones emerged from the flat wearing only boxer shorts.
“By now we say that Ms FarrDavies had died and he knew it,” he said. “He set about affecting not to know that which he has today admitted, namely that he unlawfully killed her.”
Jones shouted at passing motorists to “stop the car” as his girlfriend had taken an overdose. One stopped and an ambulance was called, with Jones repeatedly telling the operator that Ms Farr-Davies had fallen down the stairs. Paramedics found Ms FarrDavies, who was three days away from celebrating her 43rd birthday, lying on the floor in the living-room, and attempted to resuscitate her, but she was dead, the court heard.
Mr Quinlan said Jones then escaped through an open window in the flat despite being told not to leave by a police officer.
He was caught and arrested, denying that he had assaulted Ms FarrDavies. Mr Quinlan said he told officers: “When I put her in the shower this morning, she breathed” and also “I woke up this morning she was f ****** lying beside me brown bread”.
The case continues.