The woman accused of plotting to kidnap and murder 16-year-old Becky Watts has told a jury it was “extremely unfortunate” that months earlier she had sent text messages about abducting teenage girls.
Shauna Hoare, who along with her partner Nathan Matthews is accused of killing Becky, also said it was “bad timing” that hours after the teenager died she showed her boyfriend a spoof video entitled: “Do you want to hide a body?”
Hoare, 21, and Matthews, 28, allegedly murdered 16-year-old Becky in a sexually motivated kidnap plot, dismembered her body and hid the remains in a garden shed.
Bristol crown court heard Hoare was at Becky’s family home in Crown Hill, Bristol, when Matthews, the teenager’s stepbrother, suffocated her in a violent struggle.
Becky’s body was dragged downstairs and into the boot of Matthews’s Vauxhall Zafira, which was parked on the drive outside. It was driven back to the couple’s home in the Barton Hill area of Bristol, and allegedly dismembered over three days while Hoare was there. Police officers discovered Becky’s body parts in suitcases and a blue storage box in a garden shed 80 metres from the couple’s home.
Hoare, in her second day of giving evidence, denied that she played any part in Becky’s death, the disposal of her body or that she had been sexually attracted to the teenager.
Prosecuting, William Mousley QC asked: “Did you just happen to be in the wrong place at 18 Crown Hill when Becky was killed?”
Hoare replied: “From my point of view, yes.”
Mousley asked: “Did you just happen to be in the wrong place at 14 Cotton Mill Lane when, over three days, Nathan disposed of her body?”
Hoare said: “I don’t think it was the wrong place – it was my home. I was in my house, which was a normal place to be.”
Jurors were told that Hoare accompanied Matthews on shopping trips to buy clingfilm, bags, cleaning products and tape, which were used to package Becky’s body parts. Hoare told the court she thought he was buying the items because he intended to clean and declutter their flat. “He obviously had reasons for buying them which were different from what I believed,” she said.
The court heard about text messages in which Hoare and Matthews discussed kidnapping a “pretty petite girl”.
Mousley asked: “Does it just happen to be an unfortunate coincidence that you and Nathan were talking about kidnapping a girl or girls and bringing them home?”
Hoare replied: “I don’t think it was a coincidence, it was just extremely unfortunate.”
On the night that Becky’s body was taken into the couple’s home, Hoare searched for a parody of the song Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, from the children’s film Frozen, called Do You Want to Hide a Body?
Hoare said: “I suppose it was bad timing.”
Mousley asked: “Through all of this you were in blissful ignorance of everything that had taken place?”
Hoare replied: “Yes.”
Hoare said she had not disliked Becky but disliked the way she treated Matthews’s mother, Anjie Galsworthy – Becky’s stepmother. “I never said I disliked her – I disliked her actions,” she said.
“I wasn’t jealous of Becky. Nathan was jealous of the treatment that Becky got. That was more a sibling rivalry, which I didn’t have with her.”
She rejected suggestions that she would take pleasure in mistreating Becky, punishing her or using her for her own purposes.
Matthews denies murder and conspiracy to kidnap. He admits killing Becky, perverting the course of justice, preventing the burial of a corpse and possessing a prohibited weapon.
Hoare denies murder, conspiracy to kidnap, perverting the course of justice, preventing burial of a corpse and possessing a prohibited weapon.
The trial continues.
