Man pleads not guilty in murder trial

Jack Merrilees, 21, allegedly stabbed his step-father, Edward Cornet after a fierce argument broke out between the pair at a party at the 55-year-old victim’s Warwick house in May 2015.

During the ongoing trial at Warwick Crown Court, prosecutor Kate Brunner QC said there was “no dispute” that Merrilees of Linkway, Leamington, inflicted the fatal wound - but that the question was if this was done to cause harm or in self-defence.

Talking about the night of the stabbing, she told the court that Mr Cornet and his partner Stephanie Merrilees were at their home in Blackwell Lane with her son- the defendant, and his girlfriend.

A 999 call was made at just after 11pm that night when paramedics arrived to find a man lying outside on the patio bleeding from wounds to his chest.

They also saw a “blood-smeared knife in the flower bed”.

Miss Brunner said: “There is no dispute that this defendant stabbed Edward Cornet with the knife found in the flower bed. It’s likely the issues will revolve around the circumstances of the stabbing, and whether Jack Merrilees was acting in self-defence or defence of another.”

The jury heard the four of them had spent the afternoon together, and CCTV recordings showed them in a pub and then in Leamington town centre before returning to Warwick where they left a betting shop at around 6pm.

Miss Brunner said: “What happened in the five hours which followed? At some point the group of four went to the home of Stephanie Merriless and Edward Cornet, sometimes known as Eddie.

“We know from a neighbour that it sounded as though they were having some kind of a party that night. There was singing and a computer was being used to watch music videos until around 11pm.

“It was then that a fierce argument broke out, so fierce that parts of it were heard by neighbours.”

One neighbour, said he was watching television when he heard an argument break out between Mr Cornet, and a younger man.

The voices got louder as the neighbour believed the argument had moved out into the rear garden, and he said he heard the younger man say: “Get off my mum or I’ll knife you.”

Another neighbour said she also recognised Mr Cornet’s voice, and realised the other must be Stephanie’s son as she heard him swear at Eddie, saying: “I’m going to kill you,” and his mother telling him to stop.

The jury was told that another neighbour heard Merrilees say: “I hope he f***ing dies.”

Merrilees ran from the house after stabbing his mother’s partner, but then returned and spoke to the police and paramedics who had been called by his girlfriend Rebecca Beveridge.

The victim had three knife wounds to his chest, inflicted with the small kitchen knife recovered from the flower bed, and went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance on his way to hospital where he was declared dead in the early hours of the morning.

The court heard that when Merrilees was arrested at the scene he was upset and crying, and told officers: “I didn’t mean for it to end up like this. It was either him or me, and it ended up being him.”