Accused ‘went to partner for help’
Latest from stabbing murder trial
THE girlfriend of a man accused of murder was woken by her partner asking for ‘help’, a jury has heard.
Dale Heywood is one of three men standing trial accused of the murder of 17-year-old Callum Riley.
Mr Riley died after being stabbed to the leg at a property on Heywood’s Darnhill estate.
Mr Heywood, 26; Tony Adams, 34; and a 17-yearold boy who cannot be named for legal reasons have all pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors allege Mr Riley was ‘probably’ stabbed by Mr Heywood, at about 5am on September 17, 2022.
They claim Mr Riley was deliberately provoked after Mr Adams had allegedly ‘assembled a crew of men’ to attend Mr Riley’s home in Heywood earlier that night, where windows were smashed just after midnight.
Jurors have heard around a year before the alleged murder, Mr Riley had owed Mr Adams £180 for cannabis.
Mr Riley and a friend attended Mr Adams’ home a few hours after the windows were smashed, where both men were stabbed, Manchester Crown Court has heard.
Two women are also on trial, accused of assisting an offender, after allegedly ‘cleaning’ the scene at Atholl Drive of blood and glass.
Mr Adams’s partner Michelle Conaghan, 35, and their daughter, Niomi Conaghan, 19, both deny the charge.
The jury heard evidence from Hannah Blackwell, Mr Heywood’s girlfriend.
She said that she had gone to bed in the early hours of September 17, and that at about 5.30am Mr Heywood returned to their home.
“He has woke me up, I was asleep,” Ms Blackwell told police in an video recorded interview played to the jury. “He was like ‘hi, I need your help’.
“He said ‘someone has been stabbed,’ but he didn’t say who, and he didn’t say who had done it.”
Mr Heywood also told her he’d been ‘glassed’ and had cut his head, the jury heard.
Ms Blackwell said she received a phone call from Michelle Conaghan.
She said Ms Conaghan was ‘saying that Dale needed to go and hand himself in, because he has killed somebody’.
“I was trying to tell Dale to phone them and talk to them,” she said.
Ms Blackwell said that Mr Heywood then told her that he needed to ‘go and find something’.
“I’ve taken him, obviously not knowing what it is,” she said. She said she drove around Heywood for about 25 minutes while Mr Heywood looked out of the window.
Ms Blackwell said she then drove with Mr Heywood to Dovestones Reservoir in Oldham, which she described as her ‘safe space’, to ‘clear her head’.
“I was confused, I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
“Everything just felt like it was crumbling on me.” Ms Blackwell said that she told her partner about Ms Conaghan’s phone call.
She said she told Mr Heywood: “If you’ve not done anything, what are you worried about? He said ‘I’m not going’.”
She claimed that he said: “I don’t want to get locked up for something I haven’t done.” Ms Blackwell told police that he phoned a friend in Burnley before she drove them both there.
“I told him I didn’t want to,” she told the interviewing officer. Ms Blackwell said Mr Heywood then went to sleep and remained at the property until about 9.30pm, when she returned home.
Jurors have heard that Mr Heywood was arrested in Burnley in the early hours of September 18.
After he was arrested, he said: “I am really, really sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I’m really sorry. I really didn’t mean it. I am really sorry. It was self-defence, it was selfdefence.”
Ms Blackwell said she’d been in a relationship with Mr Heywood for 10 years.
“Dale has not got a bad bone in his body,” she told police. “He is not like that. I have only ever see him punch people, I’ve not seen him get a knife out on anybody.”
Mr Adams, of Minshull New Road, Crewe; Mr Heywood, of Windermere Road, Middleton; and the 17-year-old all deny murder. The three defendants also deny causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Mr Heywood and the 17-year-old deny causing criminal damage.
Jurors have heard Mr Adams has pleaded guilty to that offence.
Mr Heywood also denies possessing an offensive weapon. Michelle Conaghan and Niomi Conaghan, both of Minshull New Road, Crewe, both deny assisting an offender.
Earlier, Callum Riley’s mother Tracy Marsland gave evidence telling the jury that she blames Mr Adam’s for her son’s death.
Jurors have heard around a year before the alleged murder, Mr Riley had owed Mr Adams £180 for cannabis.
Prosecutors alleged Mr Adams and ‘four heavies’ later turned up at the home Mr Riley shared with his mother, his halfbrother Nile Brown and his girlfriend Ella Yates, and ‘stormed’ into the property, demanding to know where Mr Riley was.
Ms Marsland said that she gave her son £100 to pay off the majority of the debt.
She said that she understood the debt was ‘finished’ after her son had also been involved in a fight.
But Ms Marsland told jurors that at around 3am on September 16 last year, she returned after spending the evening with a friend to find the windows in her home had been smashed.
Jurors have heard Mr Riley was in Oldham on a night out with friends.
She called him and asked him if she knew why the windows had been ‘put through’.
Ms Marsland said he told her it was ‘sweet’ before he put the phone down.
In a follow up text message at about 4am, she said: “It’s not sweet it’s f ****** disgusting. I can’t live like this, no way.”
Mr Riley replied: “This isn’t me.”
Ms Marsland wrote: “It’s because of you. It’s Tony. Remember the one who stormed through my house because of you.
“And threatened Ella while I was asleep. It’s that ba ***** .” I have no trouble with nobody, neither does Nile. It’s you.”
Ms Marsland said she was given Mr Adams’ phone number and called him, asking him whether he was responsible for damaging her windows.
She said that he told her ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’.
Ms Marsland said that she was becoming ‘very concerned’ for her son, and that soon after his friend who he’d been out with that night arrived at the home and said he’d been stabbed.
She said that when she asked him who was responsible, he replied: “Tony Adams.”
He said he didn’t know where Mr Riley was.
Mr Riley’s body was later discovered, after he’d been stabbed to the leg.
Ms Marsland agreed that Mr Riley’s friend appeared ‘all over the place’ and as if he’d been drinking.
“I’m sure you can agree you didn’t like him [Tony Adams] then, and you don’t like him now,” Tony Adams’ barrister David Temkin KC asked her.
“That’s correct,” the witness replied. “Do you blame him, Tony Adams, for your son’s death?,” Mr Temkin continued.
“Yes,” she replied.