‘I could smell fire, burning, smoke’...trial hears of woman’s terror after shooting

THE near two-week trial at Derby Crown Court heard how Tyrone Harvey confronted victim Jodie Dickinson at a house where she was staying in Warren Street, at around 6am on January 11 of this year.

He accused the mother of his son of sleeping with another man before firing the modified weapon into her face.

Giving her evidence on the second day of the trial, Miss Dickinson recalled the moment she was shot. She said: “The last thing I can remember him saying was ‘bitch’ then I heard a loud bang, like it deafened me. I could smell fire, burning, smoke, it smelled like a bonfire. I was just in a state of shock, I just kept repeating ‘I have been shot’.”

Harvey, of Chattaway Street, Ashted Nechells, Birmingham, had denied attempted murder and the less serious charge of wounding with intent, meaning his victim had to relive her ordeal at the trial.

Giving evidence, he said when he turned up at Warren Street it was she who pulled a knife and started making stabbing motions towards a female he had arrived with.

He said at that point Miss Dickinson was “going crazy” with the weapon so he “ran past her, jumped in his car” and drove to Birmingham.

He said on the evening and morning of the shooting he had been to a party with Miss Dickinson and her friend Tyra Holt where drugs and drink were taken.

He said he left them there to get some more cannabis from a different house in Arkwright Street, Allenton, where he met a friend of Miss Dickinson, called Lauren Campbell.

Harvey said he then drove Miss Campbell to Miss Dickinson’s address in Warren Street, where the prosecution say the shooting later happened.

He said: “She [Miss Dickinson] opened the door and we walked in. She said to Laura ‘what are you doing with my man?’. She then accused me of sleeping with [another woman] and I said to her ‘what are you talking about?’

“She picked up a knife from the settee, leaned over and started stabbing after Lauren but Lauren moved, I don’t know if she catched (sic) her.

“When I saw her going crazy with the knife I said to her ‘woman, you are on drink and drugs, I’m out of here’. I ran past her, jumped in my car and drove off.”

Opening its case on day one of the trial last week, prosecuting barrister Jonathan Straw said: “At just before 6am on January 11 this year at an address in Warren Street, a woman called Jodie Dickinson was shot in the face from a very close range by someone wielding and improvised handgun.

“The crown’s case is that the person who shot Jodie Dickinson intended to kill her.

“The crown’s case is that the person who wielded the gun and pulled the trigger was this defendant, Tyrone Harvey, the former partner of Jodie Dickinson.”

Mr Straw said Harvey was arrested when his car in the Chesterfield area around a week after the shooting following a media appeal. He said a search of Harvey’s Birmingham home uncovered ball bearings, gun oil, pellets for an air weapon and a firearms booklet. The improvised firearm used to shoot Miss Dickinson has not been recovered.