Michael Warham murder trial: Witness tells of search for Shrewsbury stab victim
A woman who saw teenager Michael Warham in the hours before he was fatally stabbed in Shrewsbury told a jury that she went to search for him after he went missing.
The 16-year-old was attacked in Wayford Close during a confrontation between two groups of youths on August 1 last year and died three days later from his injuries.
Declan Graves, 20, from Liverpool, is accused of killing the teenager during the incident on the Meole Brace estate at about 9.30pm.
Giving evidence, Heather Jones, of Telford, told the jury that at the time she was cat-sitting for a friend at a flat in Netley Road, Shrewsbury, and that she knew Michael’s girlfriend Nikita. Both came to stay there with her.
Miss Jones said that Michael went out and after about 45 minutes when he failed to return she and Nikita went to look for him at the nearby retail park, but they did not find him and returned.
“Nikita was getting worried. After a while she rang the hospital and at first they said there was nobody there with that name,” she said.
“We went back out looking for him and there were police cars and some people around and somebody said a Scouse lad had been stabbed.
“We went back to the flat. Nikita phoned the hospital again and this time they did he was there. I arranged for a friend to give us a lift there,” Miss Jones said.
The case so far:
She told the trial at Stafford Crown Court yesterday that the car was stopped by the police on the way, but they were allowed to continue the journey to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
Under cross-examination by John McDermott, defending, Miss Jones told the jury she was not in the flat of another witness Beverley Robinson, in Moneybrook Way, earlier that evening when three males – one thought to be Michael – ran outside in pursuit of a larger group that had arrived there, with some shouting.
Mr McDermott put to her: “If someone said at about 9.30pm you were in Beverley Robinson’s flat, would they be completely wrong?”
Miss Jones replied: “Yes.”
Mr McDermott said: “And if they said at about 7.30 you were in that flat, would they be completely wrong?”
Miss Jones replied: “Yes.”
She said suggestions that she had taken the group of males to Miss Robinson’s home when she wasn’t there were wholly wrong, but admitted she was able to let herself into the flat.
Mr McDermott also put to her: “If I suggest that you were covering up for a number of lads who are in that flat that night, armed with weapons would it be wholly wrong?
Miss Jones replied: “Yes.”
Graves, of Liverpool, denies murdering Mr Warham, of Bootle, Merseyside.
The trial continues.
