A man accused of shooting his girlfriend in the head told police she walked into a pool cue he had been brandishing at her to defend himself during an argument over half a cigarette.
Richard Basson, 45, is accused of killing Carrie Slater, 37, who was taken to hospital on 21 September last year and died from a brain injury two days later.
At the opening of the murder trial at Leicester crown court on Wednesday, John Lloyd-Jones KC, prosecuting, said neighbours who lived next to the couple’s home in the village of Long Clawson, near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, heard a loud argument on the evening of 21 September.
They said there was then a “loud bang” that sounded like a gunshot at about 6.10pm, Lloyd-Jones told the court.
He said that 35 minutes later Basson dialled 999 and claimed his partner had “come at him with a carving knife” and that he had “jabbed at her with a pool cue”, which she had walked into and it had “penetrated her forehead”.
A recording of the 999 call Basson made after the incident was played to the court, during which Slater can be heard loudly gasping for breath in the background.
He told the call operator: “She came at me with a carving knife and I stabbed her with a pool cue – but I didn’t expect to hit her in the forehead but it’s gone right in. We argued over half a cigarette. Half a cigarette. That’s all we argued over.”
Basson declined to give his name to the operator and towards the end of the call said: “I’m in so much trouble for this. I’ve got no witnesses.”
When the police arrived at the property, Basson initially told them to leave, before he was taken outside, pinned down and handcuffed, the court heard.
Lloyd-Jones said: “Carrie had not come at him with a knife. There had been no pool cue.”
A postmortem examination found that the cause of Slater’s death was a single gunshot wound, and the bullet that killed her was recovered by a Home Office pathologist.
Lloyd-Jones said Basson had been armed with an illegal handgun that he fired twice, with one bullet going into a wall and the other fatally wounding Slater. He was found to have three illegal handguns and 68 rounds of ammunition, the prosecutor said.
“It’s the prosecution case that the defendant fired at Carrie but missed and hit the wall behind her,” Lloyd-Jones told the jury.
The court heard that Basson had a “long history of violence” and had previously attacked Slater – with whom he had been in an on-off relationship for several years – including punching, kicking and shoving her.
Lloyd-Jones said Basson “was no stranger to the use of unlawful violence” and that “Carrie’s sisters remember seeing her with bruises”.
Basson denies murder. The trial continues.
