A “manipulative, emotionally volatile and jealous” woman stabbed her ex-partner in the heart on Christmas Day while on police bail for strangling him the month before he died, a court has heard.
Kirsty Carless, 33, was “fuelled by cocaine and alcohol” when she took a taxi from her home in Cannock, Staffordshire, to the address where 31-year-old Louis Price was living and plunged a kitchen knife into his chest after a friend had shown her his profile on a dating app, Stafford Crown Court was told.
Carless, who appeared in the dock wearing a white shirt with her hair in a ponytail, denies murdering Mr Price and possessing an offensive weapon in a public place after taking the kitchen knife with her from her home in Haling Way to her ex-partner’s parents’ home in Elm Road in Norton Canes in a taxi at around 3am on December 25 last year.
At the time of the fatal stabbing, Carless had been on police bail after allegedly strangling Mr Price on November 11 2024 and she denies one count of intentional strangling and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in relation to that incident.
In his opening speech on Tuesday, prosecution counsel Jonas Hankin KC said father-of-six Mr Price had been considered by police to be “at very high risk of domestic abuse” before his death.
He said the pair had been in a “dysfunctional, abusive and highly volatile relationship which began in 2021” and was “characterised by a cycle of separation and reconciliation”.
In text messages sent to Mr Price the day before his death, Carless said “I hate u… I wish you was dead”.
The court heard Carless had been at the pub drinking double vodka and cokes with a male friend on December 24 who she later had sex with three times at his home before a female friend sent her a screenshot of Mr Price’s Tinder profile at around 1.30am on Christmas Day.
“When she received this Tinder profile, things changed,” Mr Hankin said.
“The prosecution say the defendant’s actions were motivated by anger and jealousy, fuelled by cocaine and alcohol abuse.
“Her behaviour simply reflects her volatile, aggressive personality.”
While she had been due to stay at the male friend’s home, she instead called a taxi back to her flat before calling Mr Price 45 times between 2.15am and 2.44am, only breaking up the “barrage” of phone calls to call another cab to take her to Elm Road.
Impatient for the taxi to arrive, she phoned the cab company two more times to check where it was, Mr Hankin said.
Members of Mr Price’s family sobbed in the public gallery as CCTV of the moment Carless arrived at the house just after 3am and “stalked” him around the garden, where he had been staying in a caravan, as he held his chest, was played.
She had initially gone upstairs to the property’s spare bedroom where she had expected to find Mr Price with another woman, Mr Hankin said.
He told the jury, of seven men and five women: “The defendant stabbed Louis Price, her ex-partner, in the heart with a kitchen knife more than a foot long.
“The blade penetrated 12cm into his chest, cutting through skin, muscle, rib cartilage, lung tissue and the heart.
“He died rapidly on the floor of the conservatory in his parents’ home.”
He added: “The defendant is charged with murder. The prosecution say that she intended to kill Mr Price and in order to prove the offence of murder, we have to prove she intended to at least cause really serious harm.
“We say, what else can she have intended, when she drove this knife into the chest of her ex-partner?
“The evidence will show that the defendant had taken that knife with her to the scene for the specific purpose of stabbing her ex-partner.”
Mr Hankin said the taxi driver reported that around 30 seconds after Carless let herself into the property with a key, he heard a “very loud and prolonged” scream from a man and that he “sounded scared”.
Less than two minutes after arriving at the scene, Carless was “anxious and sweating” as she got back into the taxi and demanded the driver take her to her parents’ home, where she allegedly admitted what she had done and 999 was called.
“The evidence shows, the prosecution say, that Kirsty Carless was manipulative, emotionally volatile and jealous,” Mr Hankin said.
“Her harmful use of alcohol and cocaine worsened her behaviour and the effects of intoxication intensified the negative traits of her personality.”
The trial continues.
