‘Threats to kill’ made by murder accused
A MAN accused of murdering his partner had threatened to kill her and her children weeks earlier, a court heard.
Mum-of-two Terrie-Ann Jones was found dead in the bloodied kitchen of her home on January 5 having suffered 26 separate stab wounds.
Her partner, John Paul Lewis, denies murdering the 33-year-old, claiming he was acting in self-defence after she had threatened him with a knife at her home in Talbot Road in Cimla, Neath.
Yesterday, Swansea Crown Court was told just two weeks after the couple began their relationship Miss Jones had gone to work with a swollen lip but had defended Lewis because he had said he was sorry about it.
In a police interview following his arrest, Lewis had told officers: “She knew everything I done wasn’t meant.”
Michael Jones QC, prosecuting, asked him what the phrase meant.
“It is just a saying. It is nothing personal,” said Lewis. Mr Jones asked: “You are telling police not that she did not report it not because it did not happen but because there was no harm in it?”
He replied: “I do not know. It is just a saying, like.” The court then heard a recording of a phone call the 56-yearold had made to Miss Jones last November in which he threatened to kill her and her two children and said he would blow up her house.
Lewis also told Miss Jones in the recording: “I am ******* clever. I did this once a long time ago.
“You are playing a dangerous game. I will blow you all up. I will ******* kill you. I will shoot you.”
When asked what he had meant by the call he replied: “My head was up my **** ”. Lewis also admitted he would drink up to 39 bottles of Budweiser beer a day but denied he was a controlling and violent man when he had been drinking or that he was self-conscious about the 23-year age difference between the pair.
He also admitted having taken Miss Jones’s mobile phone from her two days before her death and said it was because he was looking for evidence of her taking and dealing drugs.
He said he could not explain why scores of texts between him and Miss Jones’s daughter had been deleted and that the phone had been destroyed after it blew up in his hand “because it had too much data on it”.
He also denied an alleged incident in which he was said to have put his hands around both Miss Jones’s neck until she turned blue and that of her daughter who came to her mother’s aid.
He was also asked about text messages between Miss Jones and himself, in which she had said: “Fair play you have ruined me. I can’t even do a full shift at work. What you did to me ain’t love. You nearly killed me.”
Lewis, of Church Street, Briton Ferry, said he had no recollection of what the message referred to.
Miss Jones had also messaged: “You broke me. How can you put your hands around my neck? You scared me.”
Asked what that was in reference to Lewis said he believed it was “just a pillow fight”.
Mr Jones asked: “What did you do to make her scared to stay in her own house?”
Lewis replied: “I don’t know. You have all the answers.”
Mr Jones asked: “If you did drink too much, you could be violent?”
Lewis replied: “Yes but she could be as well.”
Mr Jones asked: “Were there times when you drank you became angry and violent towards her?”
Lewis replied: “Angry, not violent. She says silly things. She was just an attention-seeker.”
He had earlier told the court he had stopped drinking for two weeks in October and two weeks in November last year but in his police interview following Miss Jones’s death he told officers he had not drunk for four months.
Mr Jones asked him: “Was that the truth or a lie?” Lewis replied: “A lie”. Mr Jones asked: “Why did you lie?” Lewis replied: “Where are you going with this?”
Mr Jones said: “I just want to know why you lied to police.” Lewis replied: “What’s it to do with police how much I drink?”
The trial continues.