Murder accused sent barrage of texts to ex-partner before allegedly stabbing him in the chest on Christmas
The jury in the trial of a Cannock woman accused of killing her ex-partner has been shown footage of her confronting him moments before he was stabbed.
Father of six Louis Price died after being allegedly stabbed in the chest on Christmas Day last year by Kirsty Carless, with whom Stafford Crown Court heard he had been in a "toxic" and "abusive" on/off relationship, after she discovered he had set up a profile on the Tinder dating app.
Mr Jonas Hankin KC, prosecuting, said the 33-year-old defendant was filmed arriving by taxi at the Price family home in Elm Road, Norton Canes, near Cannock, where Mr Price was staying, shortly after 3am on December 25. He said she let herself into the house and checked the upstairs spare room before locating him in the garden with two male friends.
On Tuesday (July 15) the jury was shown CCTV footage of the moment Carless approached him in the garden with a grey-handled knife in her hand.
He said the footage showed Mr Price holding his arm over his chest, and trying and failing to get into his caravan as he was "stalked" around the garden by the defendant. He said seconds later she left the premises in the waiting taxi. Mr Price's friends phoned the emergency services after finding him injured on the property's conservatory floor.
Mr Hankin said the defendant had been in the company of a man called David Jones in the hours before the incident and left for her own home, in Haling Way, in Cannock, after a female friend informed her that Mr Price's profile was on Tinder. He said phone records showed that the defendant had made more than 40 attempts to message or call Mr Price's number that night.
"During that barrage of calls to Mr Price at 2.25am she called a cab to take her to Elm Road," Mr Hankin said.
The jury heard that the first officers arrived at the scene at the 3.33am and found Mr Price dead with a wound on the right side of the chest and a bloodstained knife on the kitchen counter.
He also told the jury that Carless had been arrested the previous month on suspicion of assaulting Mr Price. At the time of his death she was on police bail for offences of intentional strangulation and assault occasioning actual bodily harm against Mr Price, with conditions not to contact him or visit Elm Road where he was living with relatives.
He said prior to the November 11 incident the couple had been living together at the Haling Way property, but neighbours and friends had described the relationship as being "toxic" with Mr Price and Carless, who had a child together, accusing each other of being "abusive".
He told the jury that she had longstanding drug and drink habits and regularly took cocaine.
Carless denies murder, possessing a knife, intentionally strangling Mr Price and assaulting him.
The trial continues.