'Jealous and aggressive' Staffordshire woman stabbed her ex-partner in the heart on Christmas Day, jury told

Aston Villa supporter and dad of six Louis Price, aged 31, died after Kirsty Carless, with whom he had a difficult relationship, attacked him after finding out that he had set up a profile on the dating app.  

Carless, aged 33 and the mother of one of Mr Price's children, is standing trial at Stafford Crown Court charged with murdering him at his parents' home in Norton Canes, near Cannock, in the early hours of December 25 last year.

Opening the case on Tuesday (July 15), prosecutor Jonas Hankin KC told the jury: "On December 25 last year the defendant Kirsty Carless stabbed Louis Price, her ex-partner, in the heart with a kitchen knife more than a foot long.

"The blade penetrated to almost five inches in his chest, cutting through skin, muscle, rib cartilage, lung tissue and the heart. He died rapidly on the conservatory floor of his parents' house in Elm Road, Norton Canes, which is where he had been staying since his relationship ended. Consequently the defendant is charged with murder. 

"The prosecution say that she intended to kill Louis although in order to prove the offence of murder all is required is that she intended to kill him, or at least cause him really serious harm. What else did she intend when she drove this knife into the chest of her unarmed victim? The evidence will also show that the defendant had taken the knife with her to the scene for the specific purpose of stabbing her ex-partner. 

"You will hear that at the time of his death Louis was considered by the police to be at 'very high risk of domestic violence'. When she killed him she was on police bail for intentional strangulation and assault occasioning actual bodily harm against him on November 11, just a few weeks before she killed him.

"She was on police bail with conditions not to contact him in any way including text communications and not to enter Elm Road. The prosecution say that the defendant's actions were motivated by anger and jealousy, fuelled by cocaine and alcohol abuse. Her behaviour simply reflects her violent, aggressive personality."

Mr Hankin said Carless spent Christmas Eve drinking with friends including a man called David Jones, whom she was intimate with at the time of the incident. He said the defendant and Mr Jones were at his flat in the early hours of Christmas Day when she received a message from a friend showing Mr Price's new Tinder profile. 

"The prosecution say this is an important development notwithstanding that she was with David Jones. When she received the Tinder profile, everything changed." 

Carless, of Haling Way, Cannock, denies murder, possessing a knife, intentionally strangling Mr Price and assaulting him.

The trial continues.