A family friend thought a nine-year-old girl was “messing around” when he first saw her lying on the floor, not realising she had been fatally stabbed, a court heard.
Ollie Sheppard described seeing Aria Thorpe lying face down in the lounge of her home and thought she was playing, so called out her name. He told Bristol Crown Court that it was only when he saw blood on her arm that he knew it was more serious.
A 16-year-old boy is on trial accused of stabbing the schoolgirl in the chest at a house in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset on December 15 last year.
Mr Sheppard was staying temporarily at the house and returned there after work, entering the property by the rear door through the kitchen shortly after 6pm. He said the family dogs were shut in the kitchen, which was normal if no one was home.
Describing the house, he said: “It felt cold. Everything was silent. One of the kitchen drawers was wide open. I went from the kitchen into the hallway. I couldn’t push open the door because the door to the cupboard under the stairs was open. I managed to push my way through. As I pushed through the door, I just walked down the hallway, and I turned round by the stairs, and I saw Aria on the floor.”
Ray Tully KC, prosecuting, asked: “What was your first thought when you saw her on the floor?” Mr Sheppard replied: “She was messing around. I called her name, Aria, and pretty much I had put two and two together and I saw blood on her arm. She was tucked in by the door, face down. There wasn’t much blood visible because of the hard flooring, the carpet was dark. I couldn’t see any mark that stood out and as I said there was blood on her arm, and her school top was covered in blood. My first instinct was to ring her mother. She didn’t answer because she was at work, so I left her a note she needed to contact me ASAP and then I called 999.”
Mr Sheppard said the call handler directed him to perform CPR which he did until the emergency services arrived.
Neighbour Shalyna Chaplain told the jury she was feeding her toddler son and they were watching TV together when she heard shouting coming from next door shortly before 6pm. “The TV was on fairly loud and I became aware of a commotion from next door,” Ms Chaplain said. “It was like two people shouting who were upset, rather than two people shouting at each other who were aggressive. It got progressively louder. It was unusual because I had not heard any shouting at that level from next door. Because of how loud the noise was I believed it was outside the front. It went on for about four minutes – it wasn’t a long time. It was progressively getting louder and then it stopped completely.”
She told the jury the two voices she heard sounded like teenage boys. “Initially, when I heard the noise I wasn’t too alarmed, it was only when I heard the sirens I realised it was more serious and I regret not turning down the TV,” she said. She described the shouting as “unusual” and said she would hear noise from next door “but nothing like that”.
Andrew Langdon KC, defending the teenager, suggested what she had in fact heard was a single male voice. “It was probably difficult for you with the TV on. There wasn’t two male voices, but it was one, just shortly before the flashing lights arrived outside?” he asked. She replied: “It did sound like someone was talking to another person. At the time I was fairly certain it was two voices.”
In a written statement, Ms Chaplain’s partner Ashley Mansell said he was upstairs working in a bedroom when he heard voices coming from next door. “I heard shouting, three ‘No, no, noes’. It was said in a tone of disbelief. It immediately made me think it was an unusual thing to hear,” he said. “It was more like a ‘can’t believe it’ no. It was a male voice, I can’t say who it was.” Mr Mansell said what he heard had taken place at some point between 5.57pm and 6.07pm. He then went downstairs and shortly after heard an ambulance arriving.
The court has previously heard that after Aria was fatally stabbed the defendant left the house and went to a nearby railway station, telling children gathered there he had stabbed a child. The teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was arrested minutes later sitting on the floor of a carriage of a train waiting to leave the station.
A post-mortem examination found Aria had suffered a single stab wound to the chest and would have “died very swiftly from her injury”. The teenager denies charges of murder and manslaughter.
The trial before Mrs Justice O’Farrell continues.
