My hours of hell trapped in a car with crazed killer
A young, wheelchair-bound woman has spoken for the first time of the terrifying ordeal that ended in the arrest of machete murderer Jordan Davidson. Jez Hemming reports
ADISABLED woman has spoken for the first time about being trapped for hours in a car with machete murderer Jordan Davidson
Porsche Roberts, 21, of Colwyn Bay, was a passenger in a car driven by her friend when killer Jordan Davidson talked his way into giving him a lift. Hours of torment followed as the armed, drug-crazed fugitive manipulated them into being his personal taxi service.
Davidson was nearing the end of an orgy of violence during which he hacked to death vulnerable Nicholas Churton, 67, with a machete at his flat in Wrexham on March 23, 2017.
He was jailed for 23 years and four months in December 2017 for that and 12 other offences including robbery, assaulting an off-duty security guard with a claw hammer, attacking a police officer, threatening an elderly man with a machete and slashing a prison officer’s throat.
His sentence was later increased to a minimum 30-year tariff on appeal.
Miss Roberts and the driver were arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting but released without charge.
She described how Davidson disabled her wheelchair so she couldn’t escape after leaving her alone on a Chester housing estate – and how she crawled away from the car they were in believing she would die as the killer fought like the “Hulk” with two police officers.
Miss Roberts, a former army medic, broke her spine in a 2016 road traffic accident. She first met Davidson when she was living homeless on the streets of Wrexham.
Speaking to the Daily Post, she said she’d been stuck in Chester in March 2017 with her friend who had a car but no money to buy petrol when Davidson, with his face covered, called across the street to her.
She said: “I had known Davidson from living on the streets. I wasn’t friends with him. He was a drug user, taking heroin and crack cocaine.
“Davidson was shouting me over. His face was covered so I asked him why. He said someone was after him. I thought it was another homeless person, not the police.”
The killer, who unknown to them was wanted for murder, said he could buy petrol for them if they took him somewhere.
They drove around and Davidson kept his face covered, while his behaviour became more erratic.
“My friend was getting worried. I always went in the back of the car because it was bigger but Jordan insisted he sat behind me. He was making sexual advances from the back and I was feeling uncomfortable.”
Fear stricken Ms Roberts and the driver discussed whether to leave
Davidson when suddenly, while travelling through a Chester housing estate, Davidson told her to get out of the vehicle. It was then she saw he was armed: “He was behind me and I saw something shiny. He had a kitchen knife. I was thinking ‘what do I do now’.
“I told my friend to listen, to do what he said, then Jordan disabled my wheelchair so I couldn’t get away.
“I was really frightened. I didn’t want to leave my friend but I didn’t want to call the police because Jordan had a knife on him.”
When they returned Davidson was sweating profusely and she said her friend “looked like he’d seen a ghost”.
She believes this could be when Davidson randomly attacked offduty security guard Stephen Brown with a claw hammer, robbing him and leaving him with a fractured skull.
Davidson now had stolen bank cards and they went to a McDonald’s restaurant before stopping at several petrol stations. In Flint her friend put petrol in the car while the murderer stayed with Miss Roberts.
“All he kept saying was ‘there’s dead bodies everywhere’. He had completely lost it. He wasn’t making any sense. That’s all he kept saying.”
Just past midnight on March 29, North Wales Police officers Rhys Rushby and David Hall arrived at the garage after receiving a tip-off that the car was connected to a robbery in Chester.
Pc Hall opened the back door of the car and Miss Robers revealed what happened next: “I heard a ‘crack’ noise, like something hitting something. The police officer was holding his head and Jordan was there with a hammer and a knife.
“The police officers pepper sprayed him, Tasered him, nothing was working. He was like the Hulk he was really strong. They were trying to get hold of him.
“I got out of the car and dragged myself along the floor to get away from him. I thought I was going to be stabbed – I was petrified. I just felt completely helpless.
“I thought ‘he’s going to kill us and I’m not ready to die’. I really thought he would kill me.”
Miss Roberts said Pc Hall and Rushby deserved their bravery awards and probably saved her life.
She added: “I would like to thank them very much for what they did. There’s no telling what Davidson would have done.”
Miss Roberts said she was “absolutely shocked” when she realised the extent of Davidson’s crimes and believes they only survived because they complied with him.
In a final, chilling insight into the make-up of a killer she revealed what it was like to look into Davidson’s eyes.
She said: “I still have nightmares about it, thinking how close I came to death. When you look in his eyes it’s like looking into the eyes of a shark – there’s nothing in those eyes. He should never be released.”