Paris Wilson said her hope that Danny and his girlfriend had acid thrown in his face looked “declasse” in the wake of the attack
Danny Cahalane and Paris Wilson(Image: Facebook)
The ex-wife of a man who died 10 weeks after being attacked with sulphuric acid told a jury people thought he was a grass because he was not sent to prison after police previously caught him with drugs.
The trial of ten people – seven men from London and three women from Plymouth – continued today (February 19) at Winchester Crown Court. Seven of the ten are accused of 38-year-old Danny Cahalane’s murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter.
Lead prosecutor Joanna Martin KC previously told the jury that Danny – who died on May 3, 2025 following an attack at his home in Lipson Road, Plymouth in the early hours of February 21, 2025 – was a “drug dealer in Plymouth who owed a large amount of money to another drug dealer further up the chain of command”.
Danny admitted to police he had also gambled with the profits, including money which was meant to have gone to a drugs boss, named in court as Ryan Kennedy, also known as ‘Frost’.
The jury yesterday heard transcripts of police interviews between Paris Wilson and detectives – which took place before Danny’s death – which examined her knowledge of events and messages leading up to the attack on him at his home in Lipson Road.
Police on scene guard following acid attack incident in Lipson Road, Plymouth(Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)
Today, they heard further interviews carried out after police had secured more evidence from phone messages, but again prior to his death. .
Paris was asked why she had, following an alleged kidnapping attempt at her home in Oreston on January 19, 2025, threatened Danny that she would go on social media claiming he was “a grass”. Asked by investigators why she did not think there would be consequences of posting such a claim, she replied that “everyone” had already thought he was one “for years”. She said that the accusation was something “I know irritates him” but that he had never had consequences of being called it before, saying that even his own family would call him it.
She told police the reason people called him it was because of an occasion he was caught with drugs but did not go to prison. She went on to tell police that while people had thought he had avoided jail by informing on others [grassing], she insisted he “genuinely wasn’t one”.
Paris told police that Danny had “such potential” adding “he’s so intelligent and he does nothing with it.” She said she thought the reason he lied so much was because “he’s such a good storyteller” and was “so intelligent”. She told police: “He always told me he wanted to write a book and he would have written a bloody good one, a funny one”.
Ex-wife said she was ‘angry’ at Danny Cahalane over drug debt
Paris repeatedly told police that she was “angry” and “f***ing fuming” with Danny following the incident outside her home in The Quay, Oreston – despite her later admitting during police interviews that she had effectively organised a meeting between him and representatives of Frost’s to supposedly sort out the large drug debt he owed.
She suggested she had often had conflicting emotions regarding him saying: “He is a d*** at times and he is a liar and he has put me through hell but part of me still loves him”. She also repeatedly said that he was a “good father” and was a key part of their daughter’s life.
Danny Cahalane(Image: PA)
Acid attacks were “a Cockney thing” court heard
Police asked Paris about her message to Danny: “So I hope you and your butters girl both end up with acid in your faces”.
Paris replied – briefly laughing at one point: “Sounds declasse now doesn’t it? That was me just angry with him, but now, obviously, in hindsight, f***ing hell that’s not good is it?”
She went on to say she was angry, that Danny had “robbed” Frost and had “put everyone’s life at risk”.
Asked where the idea of acid came from, Paris replied: “Spite, nastiness. It’s not something I think Frost has mentioned to me before” before admitting that on previous occasions Frost had mentioned the way he would deal with Danny would include “cutting his fingers off, melting him, setting fire to him… things like that.”
Paris added: “Dan had said he was going to throw acid on Frost’s baby mum. It was quite a Cockney thing.”
She said she recalled Danny, when he was “involved in crime”, used to carry ammonia with him in “a squirty bottle… so it’s just something that I was aware of that they threatened each other with or do on occasion. Cockneys, that is.”
Asked again if Frost had mentioned acid, Paris conceded that the idea was “just in my head, just me being mean, mainly about his girlfriend as well.”
She insisted she did not really want Danny hurt, but it was because she was so angry with him that she sent the message.
Danny Cahalane’s family has announced his funeral (Image: Funeral Notices)
Paris was asked about other messages and images she shared which included comments about Danny’s whereabouts after the Oreston incident. Two included pictures of her hand, with her ring, while holding an expensive cup of coffee from Joe and the Juice in London.
She conceded that she was ‘showing off’ as she felt Danny was “being an a**hole”.
Asked who she thought gave out the address of Lipson Road, she said she did not know before saying she felt he had been “disrespectful” living back at their family home, when she believed he was living in a bedsit in Mount Gould Road. She admitted she told Frost she would get him the address, but never did – except for when she arranged the meeting outside her home in Oreston.
She admitted that when she and Danny lived together at Lipson Road he would deal drugs from the address. She said he would go and meet people in the back lane. She said: “I think what a lot of girlfriends do in that situation where your partner’s running out to the back lane to do something, you’ll busy yourself somewhere else.
Police on scene guard following acid attack incident in Lipson Road, Plymouth(Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)
“But I’m not stupid, I knew what he was doing. I was quite well aware of what he was getting up to.”
She accepted that her plan for Danny to meet with Frost’s men was “naive”, but regarding the Lipson Road address attack “wasn’t even naivety, I absolutely had no idea about it.” She added that she “would never have put him or my child in any sort of harms way”.
She told police: “I will maintain that I never, ever, ever, ever thought that Danny or my child were ever going to be in harm’s way.”
Paris Wilson called police tip line about people arrested over acid attack
The jury were told by prosecutor Joanna Martin KC that on April 21, 2025, after more people had been arrested in connection with the attack on April 10, Paris called the police’s inquiry line to say she had received information from her mother, Karen.
Paris claimed that one of those arrested had allowed people involved to stay at her home, “under the instruction of a third person”. She claimed that the person arrested had named the third person and the third person’s sibling “who was aware of the victim’s address whose son was meant to stay there that night, but didn’t stay there.”
Paris Wilson – charged with conspiracy to murder Danny Cahalane – attends Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on April 24, 2025 (Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)
She went on to tell the police inquiry line: “The one who had the people stay at her house was Jenna O’Grady and the people I want to report are Jude Hill and Louise Hill. Jude Hill and Louise Hill are the ones who asked people to stay there and the ones who knew where the address was.”
The jury were told that Paris was re-arrested and interviewed by police a third time on April 23, 2025 – 10 days before Danny Cahalane’s death. This time she was legally represented but answered all questions.
Paris said that Louise Hill was the mother of Danny’s other child and that she was the sister of Jude Hill. She said that on the morning of the acid attack she was with Louise and they had talked about “everything that had gone on” with regards to Danny and “how this impacted our children”. She said Louise told her that Danny would try to have both their children at the same time, “but he [Danny and Louise’s son] decided he didn’t want to go that night… that’s really weird”.
Paris said she was aware Louise would have known where Danny was living. She told police she thought it unusual the son would not be at Danny’s that night and “that her sister had been the one who’d instructed a third party to have these people at her home”, which referred to Jenna O’Grady/Said’s home in Ernesettle.
Jenna O’Grady/Said, aged 38, of Ernesettle Green, appearing at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court(Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)
She explained that she thought this was important information she had wanted to share with police, hence for her phone call. She also noted that Danny was also “very good friends’ with Jude’s ex-partner” named Kevin who also had a son with Jude.
She conceded that a lot of her messages after the attack were “quite venomous” as her own daughter had been in the house at the time and she had “felt angry at everyone about it”. She said that Jude Hill had contacted her afterwards via Snapchat and had been “very sympathetic to the situation” as she had always been friends with Danny.
Detectives highlighted a number of messages between Paris and her mother Karen. She said her mother was “aware of Frost and the situation”. She confirmed that she wrote a message suggesting Danny was keeping their daughter close “so Frost doesn’t go near him”, but said it was “a theory”.
She said Danny was a “good father” and that their daughter was challenging, but that he “managed her needs better than anybody, apart from me”. She said it felt like he was “keeping her around him a lot more”, but she said she never felt that she was unsafe with him”.
She told police: “I think, in my head, I’d thought ‘do bad guys not hurt people when there are children involved?'”.
Asked what she thought Frost would do to Danny, she replied: “I don’t know really. What do you do when you owe someone that kind of money. do you have a fight. do you shout at them? I heard various threats from both parties and threats to me too.”
Paris said her agreement to corrupt a harbour master was “poppycock”
Asked about Frost offering her money to get a harbour master to ignore a ship coming in, Paris said it was “a load of bulls***” suggesting it was just a “made up conversation to keep him happy”.
Shown a message from her to her mother, which stated “Frost has told me he can make me millions if I can get a harbour master to ignore a container coming in. I’m gutted because [name of harbourmaster] would, he’s always moaning he has no money”.
She went on to say to her mother “but we don’t get container ships here”. She suggested the harbour master worked every day of the year but was not paid well and “would, a million percent turn a blind eye – but we only get wet and dry baulk, no containers. I’m gutted lol”.
Paris said that “everyone would love to be a millionaire” but that it was a “load of bulls***, I haven’t go the balls to do anything like that and nor’s [name of harbour master] and none of us have.”
She went on to describe the entire idea as “absolute poppycock” adding that it “probably felt interesting to write it without sounding a bit embarrassing here now. Probably made me feel cool at the time, but absolute total rubbish. I certainly didn’t connect out to anyone or really made genuine attempts to facilitate that conversation.
“I’m not stupid. I understand consequence of action. A million pound would be lovely, but I wouldn’t put myself of my children in a situation to get it.”
Danny CAHALANE(Image: Funeral Notices)
Other messages shown to Paris included one where she wrote “but at least nobody but Dan gets hurt” and “I can’t get her [Danny’s girlfriend’s] address and to be honest that’s the only way I know Dan would get hurt – nobody else and he deserves it. He lies every day, he can’t help it.”
She again insisted she had no prior knowledge that Danny would be hurt as “this had been going on for months and he hadn’t been hurt”. She explained that the threats had gone back and forth for some time and she knew that Dan could “handle himself”, remarking that he had been in fights when they were a couple.
She said that she “never could foresee violence like that because it doesn’t exist in my world that I’d created, that violence doesn’t exist”.
Paris told police she attempted to ‘appease’ drug boss in messages
With regards to her contact with Frost she said he was not a friend, but was “not someone who I would want to be not friends with at the time”. She said there was a “lot of appeasing going on because I want this situation solved for me and for Dan.
“I want my life to get back to normal and I want Dan to get back to normal and I don’t want this to be anything bad, so me provoking or stoking the fire was never going to help anybody. But he’s definitely not somebody who I would want to be hanging out with.”.
She said she thought Danny should have contacted the police about Frost and said looking back she should have also called police.
Paris Wilson attends Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on April 24, 2025(Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)
The interviewing officers asked why Paris did not make this clear in her messages to her mother, that she was merely appeasing Frost.
Asked about why she sent a message to her mother about Frost’s watch, which he had told her was worth £90,000, Paris replied that she did not think it was important to tell her mother, but that it was a “fancy watch”.
She added: “I’m not an idiot. I’m sure it’s a fantastic watch, but it can get taken off him as quickly as he can purchase it, if it’s even real.
“That kind of thing doesn’t bother me. I’ve worked in London I’ve seen people with watches that are twice as expensive as that. It’s not really of any significance. Probably my mum would find it more interesting than what I did. But I think the point was he’s a young lad, he lives in Dubai, he’s got a ninety thousand pound watch. For me the money’s not impressive, no.”
After reiterating that she had handed over all her banking details, which did not show any transactions into her accounts from Frost or others, she went on to say messages about her getting some of Danny’s debt money was effectively a suggestion by Frost to reimburse her for maintenance that Danny had repeatedly failed to pay.
She said that “nothing happened” from that conversation and it was “on e of the many willy nilly bulls***ty conversations we all had about things at the time.
“I never expected any month. I never anticipated any money. I never promised or waited on any money. I think Frost like me, which I think helped the situation a little bit.
“I think now, naively, I don’t think he did.
“I think he thought he was manipulating me.”
The Quay, Oreston(Image: Google Street View)
She went on to tell police: “I’m a victim in this as well because someone’s always contacting me, always saying something to me. I feel like I’m being bullied. I’m being pressured all the time.”
She told police that Danny told her on more than one occasion that he had got the debt paid and that was the reason she let him have their daughter over at his home on the night he was attacked.
She told police: “I was super naive. I was totally manipulated by Frost.
“The fact is, that you know somebody gave his address away that night and my child was in that house and my child doesn’t have her father now and that makes me f***ing angry”.
Paris admitted she became aware of the criminal world through Danny
In answer to questions about her knowledge of the underworld, she said she was with Danny for a number of years and knew that drug dealing “demonstrates a lifestyle”.
She said that she learned the “slang” of it but had not been “directly implicated in anything like this”.
Paris told police it became like “part of a story that you’re in, you are removed but you’re also in it.”
She explained: “I understand that when you owe, so even in the normal world, if you owe someone money there are consequences to that. You might have your house taken off you, reprocessed. I understand if you owe somebody money that that money has to be repaid.”
“To what level of you know how that works [in the criminal world], I don’t know how that works. Does that work by you paying that debt off?”
Regarding a message to her mother where Paris claimed that Frost would pay her “a few grand and double what Dan owes you and give you an ounce, so six hundred and an ounce – that’s Turkey paid for us all” for Danny’s his address, Paris said it was “just a conversation I had with my mum”, adding that it had “just come into my head, I felt angry and the whole situation”.
She denied she ever acted on the request to get Danny’s address saying that it never felt “real” and that it felt “almost imaginary, to an extent that the whole situation actually feels quite out of body.
“It all feels like I’d gone from working this very professional job to being thrust back into quite a lot of darkness and it all almost feels quite imaginary.”
Winchester Crown Court in Hampshire(Image: Corin Messer)
A total of 10 defendants – seven men from London and three women from Plymouth – are on trial, with seven of these accused of Mr Cahalane’s murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter, on May 3, 2025.
They are Paris Wilson, 35, of The Quay, Plymouth; Jude Hill, 43, of Wantage Gardens, Plymouth; Abdulrasheed Adedoja, 23, of Neasden, London; Ramarnee Bakas-Sithole, 23, of Islington, London; Israel Augustus, aged 26, of Tottenham, London; Isanah Sungum, 22, of Edmonton, London; and Brian Kalemba, 23, of Barking, London.
Five of the defendants are charged with the attempted kidnapping and attempted grievous bodily harm of Mr Cahalane on January 19 2025, at The Quay in Oreston, Plymouth. They are Adedoja, Bakas-Sithole and Wilson, along with Jean Mukuna, 23, and Arrone Mukuna, 25, both of Camden, London.
All – except for Jude Hill – are also charged with participating in criminal activities of an organised crime group, namely the supply of drugs including the enforcement of drug debts and profiting from the supply of drugs in which Ryan Kennedy played a leading role.
All ten deny the charges.
The trial continues.
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