Killer driver drunk and on cocaine 'tried to frighten group' when he hit woman by takeaway

Stephen McHugh, 28, killed “innocent bystander” Rebecca Steer of Llanymynech, Wales, outside the Grill Out takeaway in Oswestry at around 3am on October 9 last year.

A man, Kyle Roberts, was also seriously injured in the incident.

Stafford Crown Court had already heard how McHugh, of Artillery Road, Park Hall, Oswestry is accused of using his gold Volvo S60 “as a weapon” to drive into a crowd of young people outside the takeaway in Willow Street after getting into an altercation.

But the 28-year-old told the jury yesterday that he was just “trying to frighten” the group.

Taking the stand on the fifth day of his murder trial, McHugh, who is originally from Merseyside, told the court he had drunk around five bottles of beer, 10 double shots and had taken two grams of cocaine before the incident happened.

Friends

“And how did you feel?” defence barrister Mr Paul Hynes KC asked him.

“Drunk” McHugh replied.

He said that he and two friends were on their way to pick up another friend, Steve Jones, from Willow Street, when they heard somebody shout at the car.

“I thought the shouting may have been from Steve that’s why I stopped the car,” said McHugh, adding he then “reversed back without looking”.

“What happened when you reversed back?” asked Mr Hynes.

“People started shouting abuse at me,” replied McHugh.

Asked if that was why he then decided to drive forward at the crowd, he said: “I was trying to get close to the kerb but not on the kerb, to frighten the group.

“It was really, really stupid.”

He added: “I just wanted to give them a little fright, find Steve and go home. That was my plan.”

He told the jury that he was unaware he had hit anybody until he tried to drive off and heard a sound under the car.

But he denied he had been angry at the group, telling the court: “It wasn’t something to be angry over.

“I’m not an angry person.”

However, the court had earlier heard how McHugh had kicked a person “he had never seen before in my life” in the head in the town centre’s Festival Square less than an hour earlier.

McHugh had told the court: “Somebody in our group recognised them.

“He walked over and punched one of them and when he walked off, I then kicked one of them in the head.”

Excuse

Asked why he kicked a “stranger” that had already been hit to the floor in the head, he replied: “I have got no excuse for my actions.

“I was drunk. I didn’t feel like myself.”

He had also earlier told the court that he had “never” held a driving licence and his driving experience was “next to none”.

McHugh, who has admitted manslaughter and actual bodily harm, denies murder and grievous bodily harm.

The case continues.