‘I punched Louise but I didn’t kill her’
Murder accused carried on despite ‘hearing cracks’ after ‘losing control’
ACCUSED murderer Shane Mays has told jurors he repeatedly punched Louise Smith in the face before walking off leaving her ‘moaning’ but said he ‘did not kill’ the teenager.
Giving evidence at Winchester Crown Court, Mays said he punched the 5ft 16-year-old to the ground in Havant Thicket on May 8 after she hit him with a stick while acting ‘aggressively’.
Mays, 30, said it happened after Louise told him she wanted to smoke cannabis, having been told not to while living with Mays and his wife Chazlynn, and he said: ‘You don’t want to end up like your mum.’
Mays, who is about 6ft tall and weighs 17st, said he grabbed the stick from Louise, before punching her repeatedly in the face. He has admitted her manslaughter.
He told jurors he walked with Louise from Ringwood House, Somborne Drive in Leigh Park, thinking they were going to West Leigh skatepark but instead walked for nearly an hour to a clearing in Havant Thicket.
He said Louise ‘lied’ about wanting to meet a friend to pick up clothes and did this ‘so she could get me on my own’.
Jurors have heard Louise’s body was not found for another 13 days following a large police search.
Giving evidence when questioned by his barrister Andrew Langdon QC, Mays said after walking to Havant Thicket the mood ‘changed’ in the clearing after they talked about her boyfriend Bradley Kercher.
Louise had brought up cannabis and she ‘wanted to do weed again’, Mays said.
He told jurors: ‘ She was getting aggressive about it and started shouting, raising her voice.
‘She said she wanted to start taking weed again. I said to her “you don’t want to end up like your mum”.’
She took that ‘not very well’, Mays said.
He added: ‘She picked up this big stick and hit me in the side with it.’
He said: ‘I grabbed the branch off of her, threw it against the floor and then I punched her.’
Asked why he punched her, he added: ‘Because I was angry for what she did the night before and just then.’
He added: ‘First punch she was standing, second punch she went down.’
Mr Langdon asked: ‘When she’s on the ground, does the punching stop?’
Mays said: ‘No.’ He said he was ‘ bending over’ Louise punching her while she was on the ground and ‘ heard cracks’.
‘Why didn’t you stop?’ Mr Langdon asked. Mays said: ‘Because I was angry and lost control of myself.’
Asked what he did when he stopped, Mays said: ‘I got up and began to walk away.
‘I looked back and heard her moaning. Then I just carried on walking.’
Mays said he saw ‘ three blokes sitting on some cut logs’ but didn’t take notice of them.
Under questioning from prosecutor James Newton-Price QC, he told jurors: ‘I did not kill Louise.’
The prosecutor asked: ‘You’ve got a short fuse?’ Mays replied: ‘I have.’
He admitted getting violent and ‘punching’ objects when angry, and agreed when the prosecutor asked if he could get ‘very angry indeed’.
Mays admitted he lied to police after his kidnap arrest, but only realised what had happened while on remand in Bristol jail following his murder arrest on May 27.
Mays, who has an IQ of 63, said he went to Stratfield Gardens, his mother’s home, for 15 minutes after punching Louise.
Asked why, he said: ‘To pick up an HDMI lead.’