A teenage girl allegedly murdered her cousin’s boyfriend after texting her mum that she would ‘end up stabbing him’.
Prosecutors say Paige Poulton killed Jack Cadwallader, 25, at a flat in Harrietsham, Kent after a ‘quarrelsome’ day last summer.
Then 19, Poulton had been staying with her cousin Shannon Byrne when an argument had erupted with Mr Cadwallader. In the days leading up to the encounter, Poulter had grown irritated with him, even texting her mum about it.
On July 2 last year, Poulton is said to have punched Mr Cadwallader in the face before plunging a knife into his chest and hiding from police in some bushes.
Poulton denies murder and possessing a bladed article and is expected to argue that she acted in self-defence.
Her murder trial opened yesterday at Maidstone Crown Court and heard Poulton stabbed her victim within seconds of him arriving at a friend’s flat.
Prosecutor Sarah Jones KC told the court Poulton had stabbed Mr Cadwallader with ‘murderous intent’.
‘She was wound up. Perhaps he goaded her and she snapped. There were any number of ways she could have dealt with the situation they were in but she went straight for the most dangerous and violent method she could and she killed him. And we say there was no lawful justification for that,’ she told the court.
The court heard Poulton was staying in Kent with her cousin, Mr Cadwallader’s girlfriend after she lost her accommodation.
Prosecutor Jones said Mr Cadwallader and his girlfriend had a ‘stormy’ relationship which became ‘fraught’ in the hours leading up to his murder.
The couple had met up with a group of friends at the Muggleton Inn Wetherspoons pub in Maidstone, Kent, the day before Mr Cadwallader’s death.
After arguing with Mr Cadwallader, Poulton’s cousin joined her and her boyfriend, along with a friend, Bibiana Valery, after bumping into them in the town centre.
All four caught a train just after 6pm and headed back to Ms Valery’s home in Southfields Way in Harrietsham.
Prosecutors alleged that Poulton had found Mr Cadwallader ‘increasingly irritating’ and, in a message sent to her mum a little over 24 hours before his death, said: ‘Jack keeps going on imma (sic) end up stabbing the C***.’
Ms Byrne was contacting people at the time to find out where Mr Cadwallader was, before he later turned up to the address where Poulton, her cousin and friend were drinking that evening.
As soon as Mr Cadwallader arrived, a row began, with Poulton going straight up to him and punching him in the mouth, causing his lip to bleed.
The court heard that Mr Cadwallader ‘laughed it off’ and that Poulton told him she didn’t like the way he treated her cousin, that he thought he was ‘something special’ and to ‘get the f*** out’.
Mr Cadwallader and Poulton’s boyfriend then exchanged words and went outside for a fight, at which point Poulton said she was going to ‘go f***ing mad’.
She grabbed a knife, as Mr Cadwallader picked up a metal chair, using the legs to ward off Poulton before she ‘stabbed him’.
Prosecutor Jones said: ‘Ms Byrne saw Ms Poulton stab, with intention, hard into the left side of Mr Cadwallader’s chest. She said she did it really quickly but really hard.’
He put the chair down before collapsing on the grass, bleeding to death.
As Mr Cadwallader lay on the ground, jurors heard everyone froze before Poulton began to panic and asked her cousin: ‘Don’t tell the police’, as Ms Byrne started screaming ‘What the f*** have you done?’
The 999 call was said to have captured ‘chaos’ at the scene as people argued about how best to deal with the wounded man.
It was decided to drive Mr Cadwallader to the hospital rather than wait for the emergency services.
Sadly, however, he was no longer breathing upon arrival and, despite the best efforts of paramedics and an air ambulance crew, he was pronounced dead shortly before 3 am.
An hour later when an officer heard ‘shuffling’ noises in the pitch black, Poulton and her boyfriend were discovered hiding in nearby bushes.
The pair were arrested and, as Poulton was placed in handcuffs, the court heard she made various comments, including: ‘He tried to beat me up’.
The court heard she also claimed Mr Cadwallader had beat up her cousin and tried to boot her French bulldog.
Poulton answered ‘no comment’to all questions once formally interviewed.
A knife measuring 15.2cm was one of three found by police in the kitchen sink and had a complete DNA profile for Mr Cadwallader.
Blood tests revealed he was more than double the drink-drive limit at the time of his death, with the suggestion of recent cocaine and morphine use – possibly from heroin – as well as anti-psychotic, anti-depression and anti-anxiety drugs, and one for treating insomnia.
Poulton was found to have traces of alcohol, cocaine and THC – the breakdown product of cannabis – in her urine, as well as drugs for anxiety and insomnia.
Prosecutor Jones added: ‘Mr Cadwallader was not attacking anyone at that point in time. On the contrary, he had received and not reacted to violence from Paige Poulton when she punched him.
‘He might have offered Clive Harris outside for a fight but he never punched him and nothing was making Mr Harris or anyone else go with him and start violence. There were four other people present that night and none of them felt the need to defend themselves.
‘He was not a fatal threat. Instead she commented on how mad she was – not threatened by him, not frightened by him, but on her emotions and how she couldn’t control them. She had built up a murderous rage. In fact it had been bubbling below the surface for some time.’
The prosecutor said the message Poulton sent to her mum was a ‘clear expression’ of anger and irritation she felt towards Mr Cadwallader which later ‘exploded into violence’.
The trial, which is expected to last up to four weeks, continues.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.