Man accused of driving partner to suicide tells jury: I am not a monster
Ryan Wellings denies the manslaughter of his partner, Kiena Dawes, who took her own life on a railway line in July 2022.
A man accused of driving his vulnerable partner to suicide through domestic abuse and violence drank prosecco and took cocaine after being charged with her manslaughter, he told a jury.
Ryan Wellings, 30, said he left the police station after being accused of being responsible for the death of Kiena Dawes, 23, and then recorded and uploaded a video to Facebook, blaming Miss Dawes’ mother for her daughter’s death, Preston Crown Court heard.
Wellings is on trial for the manslaughter of Miss Dawes, who left a suicide note saying, “I was murdered … Ryan Wellings killed me.”
She left their eight-month-old daughter with a friend before taking her own life on a railway line on July 22 2022.
Wellings, a landscape gardener, of Bispham, Lancashire, also denies assault and coercive and controlling behaviour between January 2020 and July 2022.
He was asked about the short video he made within an hour of leaving the police station, on June 3 last year, after being charged with Miss Dawes’ manslaughter.
The clip, with loud backing music, showed him being driven in a car, wearing sunglasses and holding a bottle, saying: “I’m driving around with a bottle of prosecco.
“I have been told off an hour ago on a manslaughter charge.
“It’s all f****** shit.
“Angela Dawes (Kiena’s mother), you need to take the blame for abandoning your daughter and going to Greece.
“You are a f****** slag.”
Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, asked Wellings in the witness box: “You uploaded it on purpose to intimidate the Dawes family and show them who is boss.
“What we see there is the real Ryan Wellings. Ryan Wellings the bully.
“The entitled person. The person who thinks he can do what he wants to people and say what he wants.”
Wellings replied: “I did not know what I was doing. I know I did wrong and did some stupid things. That’s me hurting. Being blamed for killing my kid’s mum, the woman I loved.”
The defendant said he was sleep-deprived and had downed bottles of prosecco and taken drugs at the time but maintained he uploaded the video to Facebook by accident and later deleted it.
Mr Greaney moved on to the suicide note left by Miss Dawes.
He pointed out she did not blame her family for her death, writing: “I will always love my family. I love them unconditionally.”
Mr Greaney said the note blamed Wellings for her death, calling him a “monster” and a “bully”.
“She says you killed her in that note, just hours before she took her own life.
“At the time Kiena took her own life, she was thinking about you and regarded you as a monster.”
Wellings, wiping away tears, replied: “I’m not a monster. Never have been.”
Jurors have seen photos of Miss Dawes injured from alleged assaults by Wellings and multiple text exchanges between the pair where she accuses him of hurting her.
But Wellings maintained he never intentionally hit her and any injuries were a result of him “restraining” her as she attacked him.
The defendant has admitted previously assaulting another former girlfriend, the mother of his twin daughters, but denied ever attacking Miss Dawes, a hairdresser, from Fleetwood, Lancashire.
Miss Dawes, who had struggled with poor mental health, first met Wellings in January 2020 and was “swept off her feet”, her mother told the court.
He had her name and face tattooed on his body within a week and proposed marriage within three months.
But it is alleged that Wellings began physically and emotionally abusing Miss Dawes soon after, and she told a friend their relationship was a “fairytale (that had) turned into a nightmare”.
The trial was adjourned until Friday morning.
