The jury in the trial of Ryan Wellings, accused of driving his patner to suicide through abusive behaviour, has been told to ‘set emotion aside’ when they retire to consider their verdicts.
Wellings, 30, denies coercive conrol, ABH and manslaughter after the mother of his child took her own life on a railway line in Lancashire in July 2022. Kiena Dawes, 23, left a note stating “Ryan Wellings killed me” before droppping her daughter with a friend and driving to the location where her body was later found.
The prosecution say Kiena was subjected to two years of domestic abuse by Wellings and was injured in an assault by him at their flat in Fleetwood on July 11, 2022. Wellings, a landscape gardener, admits restraining Kiena but claims she was the aggressor during rows.
At times he said he was ‘heavy handed’ when he retrained her but says he did not intentionally hurt her. He claimed her head injury on July 11 was either caused accidentally, when he kicked the front door, or by Kiena herself with a wallpaper scraper. After hearing five weeks of evidence, the jury is expected to retire to consider the verdicts later this week.
Addressing the jury yesterday at Preston Crown Court, the Honorary Recorder of Preston, Judge Robert Altham said: “This is a desperately sad case. We know Kiena Dawes took her own life and who could fail to be moved by that? Emotion simply is really not going to help, may well get in the way and what you need to do is set it aside and look at the evidence.” The trial continues.
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