Shrewsbury murder accused: I did not mean to kill her
A man accused of murder claims the injury that caused the death of his former partner in Shrewsbury happened when he walked on her as she lay drunk on the floor.
Nigel Woolley, who demonstrated from the witness box how he bobbed down, putting his weight on Julie Mercer's chest or tummy area, said he did not intend to kill her, but now accepted that his action resulted in her death.
"As I walked out I walked on her. As I walked I put my weight on her," he said.
He claims he pressed down with his foot just once, Worcester Crown Court heard.
And he told the jury during his trial yesterday that he did not own up to police during interviews after his arrest because he was "too ashamed of doing it".
The court had been told previously that Ms Mercer, 47, died in extreme pain when her pancreas was split in two.
When he was grilled in the witness box by prosecutor Richard Atkins QC – he accepted that it would have needed "some force" to cause the split pancreas that led to Ms Mercer's death.
Cross-examining Woolley at Worcester Crown Court, Mr Atkins alleged: "You held her by the throat and punched her hard in the stomach area – or kneed her or knocked her to the ground and stamped on her."
Woolley, who claims the injury was caused when he walked on her and he pressed down with his foot in a sort of "bobbing" action, replied "no" and he also denied Ms Mercer was screaming.
Judge Robert Juckes QC asked if she just "lay there and took it", to which Woolley replied "yes".
Woolley, 46, of Buttington Road, Monkmoor, Shrewsbury, admits manslaughter but denies murdering finance manager Ms Mercer at the offices of Dial-a-Ride, on Sundorne Trade Park, Shrewsbury. Her body was found there on the morning of Christmas Eve 2014.
A medical expert has compared the force needed to cause the injury to falling from a height of more than two storeys.
Woolley said he met Ms Mercer 25 years ago. She invited him back to live with her in Buttington Road but they did not have a sexual relationship.
Woolley agreed with Andrew O'Byrne, defending, that he and Ms Mercer were alcoholics. He told the jury Ms Mercer got violent towards him when she drank but also agreed that he hit her at times on the back of the head and in the ribs.
He accepted he caused some of the older rib injuries found on her body but said he had not, in the past, hit her in the eye and he was not aware of more recent bruising to her back.
Woolley also said he had not hit her on December 22 or 23 – the time estimated that Ms Mercer suffered other fractured ribs.
The trial continues.
