A jury has been sent out to consider whether the killer of Speke teenager Kelsey Shaw was “in control of his actions” when he strangled her.
Callum Wilcocks, now 23, admits using an arm-lock and then his hands to choke the 17-year-old mum-of-one to death at her friend’s flat in Foundry Lane, Widnes , in April 2011, after a row about them seeing other people.
But Wilcocks, of Hale Drive, Widnes, says a severe personality disorder means he is only guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, rather than murder.
Today a jury at Liverpool Crown Court were told to decide whether or not Wilcocks experienced either a loss of control or an “abnormality of mental function arising from a recognised medical condition” at the time.
But in his closing speech to the jury, prosecuting counsel Simon Medland, QC, said: “The picture here is of young man who didn’t have the best upbringing, there will be many who had worse upbringings, there will be many who had better.
“He may not have exhibited the best behaviour, as I’m sure many in a custodial setting would not, but all of that is a long way away from excusing what he did to Kelsey Shaw when he murdered her.”
Mr Medland said Wilcocks had come “nowhere near” proving he was not responsible for his actions and was “pushing the excuse” of his medical condition.
He said: “It must be comfortable for him to think, I have killed my girlfriend Kelsey by strangling her but I’m not responsible because I’m ill.”
But Gareth Evans, QC, defending, claimed the evidence of expert witnesses Dr Rajan Nathan and Dr Jonathan Shapero said Wilcocks was suffering from a severe personality disorder, which could have affected his ability to control his actions.
Describing Wilcocks as “damaged goods” and “abnormal,” he said: “Callum Wilcocks has not been normal since a very early age. He says he felt unloved, uncared for. He says he always felt different, he felt like an outsider. You have heard he was bullied by his siblings, who called him ‘spudhead’. He did not fit into his own family.”
Callum Wilcocks
Wilcocks had claimed that in the heated row before her death, Kelsey said their daughter was not his child and that he would never see her again, that he was useless and should kill himself, and that he was sexually inferior to another man she had been seeing.
Mr Evans said the “barrage of threats, insults and revelations” acted as a “qualifying trigger” under the law regarding loss of self control.
He said: “The intensity and the number of those insults we say is very important. Each was a hammer blow, one after the other.”
But Mr Medland pointed out that Wilcocks made no mention of these comments in his police interview, and suggested he had invented them.
He also claimed Dr Nathan had been “extraordinarily generous” in his assessment of Wilcocks, and that other experts had suggested Wilcocks was cynically exaggerating his symptoms.
The jury will resume their deliberations tomorrow morning.
Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/