Michael Warham murder trial: Neighbours tell jury of shock at stabbing
Residents in the street where a teenager was found with fatal stab wounds in Shrewsbury told a jury of their shock.
Sixteen-year-old Michael Warham was stabbed through the heart during a confrontation between youths in Wayford Close, Shrewsbury, on August 1 last year.
Miss Rachel Brand, prosecuting, read aloud the statement of Wayford Close resident David Rogers, who heard noises outside his home at about 9.30pm.
He said: “I saw a figure run pass the window. Just after I heard shouting that sounded like it was coming from the direction where the person had come from.
“My initial thought was that the person had broken into a car. I went out to look.
“I immediately saw someone stood on the pavement on the same side has my house – I walked to the end of the garden. I assume they must have seen me because they ran off.
“The person was wearing a light-coloured top.
“I didn’t see anything else in the street and the shouting had stopped.”
Mr Rogers stated that his wife came downstairs to ask him what was going on outside and that there was someone lying in the road.
He said he shone a torch and thought he saw a coat in the road.
“Within a short time I saw an ambulance come and the paramedics went to the area where I thought was a coat,” he said.
“From my initial sighting of the person running pass my house to the emergency services arriving was about 10 minutes. It was dark and drizzly.”
Giving evidence under oath, witness Beverly Robinson told the court that earlier that evening she returned from the shops to find an acquaintance Heather Jones and at least three males with Liverpool accents, whom she didn’t know, in her flat in Moneybrook Way.
She denied being aware that any of her visitors were involved in illegal drugs.
Mrs Robinson told the jury she did not mind people coming to her flat as it was raining and she did not like the thought of anyone getting wet on the streets.
She said: “I heard something hit the window of my flat. I got up and pulled the curtain and saw a group of youths outside. I recognised some of them. One was holding a tree branch. One was shouting ‘get them out here’. The males who were on my flat just took off.
“Heather stayed. She was fast asleep.”
Under cross-examination by Mr John McDermott, defending, Mrs Robinson conceded there may have been more men in her flat, but she insisted three ran outside.
Mr Wareham, from Merseyside, died three days later from his injuries.
Declan Graves, 20, from Liverpool, is accused of killing the teenager during the incident that involved a clash between two groups of young people on the Meole Brace estate, in Shrewsbury.
The trial continues.
