Stephen Bates had only met Martin O’Donovan for the first time on the night he is accused of murdering the 47-year-old
Police at the scene on Stonyhurst Road in Woolton(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A man downed Jägerbombs with his girlfriend’s brother before running over and killing him on the night that the two men met for the first time, a court has heard. Martin O’Donovan died aged 47 following the incident outside his sister’s home on Stonyhurst Road in Woolton in April this year, which came during their mum’s 70th birthday party.
Stephen Bates, of Herondale Road in Mossley Hill, went on trial at Liverpool Crown Court yesterday, Tuesday, accused of his murder. While they had only met for the first time earlier the same day, he allegedly went on to issue a series of threats to kill his victim in the aftermath a drunken punch up.
The 42-year-old then returned to the scene in his Ford Fiesta and “deliberately drove straight at him”, leaving him trapped underneath the car with serious head injuries. He went on to tell police officers who attended the scene: “I know what I’ve done, I’ve f***ed up.”
Jurors were yesterday played footage of a pre-recorded interview which Susanne Lewzey, Bates’ girlfriend and Mr O’Donovan’s sister, gave to detectives the next day. During the video, she said of the party: “Everything was good. Everyone was having a good time. Me and Stephen, my boyfriend, my brother and my mum started having a few drinks at about 3 o’clock, a couple of hours before everyone else came.
“It was good. No issues. It was the first time my brother and my boyfriend had met. He doesn’t come home that much. He lives in Birmingham. They hit it off straight away, it was all good. They were just having a laugh, downing shots, getting a little bit more drunk as time went on. Everyone was laughing about how they had a bit of a bromance. They were all made up with each other. Typical party, everything was fine.
“As the night went on, I noticed Stephen was getting a bit too drunk. I’ve never seen him that drunk. I’ve been with him 19 months. If we go out, we have two or three. I’ve never seen him bladdered or heavily drunk before, but he was. He was very drunk.
“I thought, he’s starting to get on people’s nerves. I didn’t want to make a fuss. I said, ‘come and sit in the living room, have a sit down for 10 minutes’. I said ‘nobody’s complaining, but you’ve had a lot to drink babe, you need to have a little chill and have some water for a bit’.
“He said, ‘do you want me to go home then, I’m a k***head?’. He started to get in a mood. That snowballed then. Not in a massive way at first. I said, I don’t want you to go home, there’s no problem. You’ve had a lot to drink. It’s my mum’s birthday party and I want to enjoy it. You can either have a sit down and chill or I’ll order you a taxi. He said ‘I’ll go, I’m walking’.
“I ordered him an Uber, and it turned up in a few minutes. He was at his car door, ‘get out the way, I’m driving’. This went on for five, 10 minutes. I was trying to calm him down. I was saying ‘I love you, you’re going to kill yourself or someone else, you’re not getting in this car, end of’.
“I was dead calm. I said, you’re not getting in the car. He said, ‘get out my f***ing face right now’. I went right, ok, gave him his keys then ran in and said ‘Martin, I can’t stop him from getting in that car, please go out, he’s going to kill himself’.
“They were just sitting there talking, calm. Everything was calm. I don’t know how long later it was, they came together into the hall, the front door, my brother first then Stephen. I don’t know what got said. It went from being calm to them fighting. They were literally just battering each other in the garden. I was like, what the hell? I didn’t understand what had happened.”
Ms Lewzey recalled that the two men were “bashing against her car” and “rolling around the front garden”, adding: “They were just going at it. I managed to separate them. I was saying, ‘stop it, stop it, just stop’. Other people had hold of my brother. Steven was still antagonising, ‘look at you, you’re a f***ing p***y, you’re a c***, you’re all c***s. I was like, ‘pack it in’.
“Then he’s again [said], ‘I’m getting my car, no one’s f***ing telling me’. He was like, ‘this is not gonna be the same again after this, all your family are c***s’. Then he was trying to get back in his car, and this conversation has started again.”
Ms Lewzey said her sister Natalie O’Donovan subsequently offered to drive Bates home in his own car, which he agreed to. She added: “I thought, well, at least that’s that and he’s home. I went back inside. Everything was kind of alright. I was just fuming that they’d been fighting. It was my mum’s birthday. I’m livid. This was supposed to be a nice party.
“My brother came up and said, ‘I’m so sorry we ended up fighting, but I can’t be having him threatening my sister, he’s out of order’. I was like, ‘I’m not even mad at you, I appreciate what you’ve done, but it’s just not on, I don’t want that here’. He was like, ‘I love you and I’ll protect you’. I said there won’t be an issue because he’s not coming back, I don’t want to speak to him ever again. That was that, I thought.”
However, Ms Lewzey then received a phone call from Ms O’Donovan in which she learned that Bates had directed her to Barndale Road, the street next to where he lived, before getting behind the wheel and driving away without her. She said of this: “She said, ‘oh my god, he’s just got in the car and sped off’. I was like, you are kidding. I’m fuming.
“I opened my front door and my brother was sitting on the wall. I was just about to say to him, ‘Martin, he’s got in his car’. I literally just opened it, and his car appeared. His car just appeared. It went right into the wall.
“Within a split second, my brother had jumped up. He basically jumped off the wall, because he’d seen the car, and ran to dodge the car. He went to hit him, stopped, turned and just ran him straight full over, and I mean, like full blast. I went ballistic. I could see my brother face down under his car. He was still revving it, trying to carry on. I thought, he’s going to run over him again with the back wheels.
“I was just banging on the driver’s window like, ‘stop, stop’. He was just like, nothing. I was terrified. I opened the driver’s door and started hitting him, saying ‘stop, stop, he’s under the car’. I grabbed the keys out of the ignition. He just looked at me and got out the car. I don’t know where he went. I never seen him again.”
One man walked out of the public gallery, where members of Mr O’Donovan’s family were seen wiping tears away with tissues, as Ms Lewzey continued to say in the footage: “From that point, all I could see was my brother face down under the car. I rang an ambulance straight away. My cousins and uncles came out and lifted the car. He was in a terrible state. The blood was everywhere.
“There was loads of commotion in the street. Everyone was hysterical. Then the paramedics came. There was loads of police. I could just tell straight away that he was almost dead, basically. They were working on him for ages.”
46-year-old Martin O’Donovan, who died following an incident on Stonyhurst Road, Woolton(Image: Merseyside Police )
Again describing the movements of Bates’ car, Ms Lewzey said: “He turned into the wall, like he was going to hit the wall. It was very deliberate, as in, ‘oh yeah, I’m gonna run you over’. Literally, it was so quick. It all happened in seconds. It was a definite. He wasn’t driving in a straight line down the road. It was deliberate.
“I was convinced at that point, he’s trying to carry on, and I wasn’t having that. The front wheels have gone over him. I was 110% certain the back wheels were going to go over him, which is why I went berserk. I was convinced he was trying to keep on going.
“I got my mobile phone in my hand and just started smashing at the window, shouting ‘stop’. He wasn’t paying no attention to me. I was trying to get the keys. He literally didn’t say anything. I was screaming.
“I was thinking, ‘do you know he’s under this f***ing car?’. But he clearly does know he’s under the car. He just looked and got out the car. I didn’t see him again. I didn’t see where he went. He practically had to step over him, he’s trapped under the car.
“The only way I can describe him is like, just nothing. I’ve never known nothing like it. This is why this whole thing is just so surreal. We don’t really drink that much. I’ve never seen him bladdered. I’ve never seen him really, really drunk.
“It was like he was just glazed over. There was nothing there, and it was weird. That’s what I felt like when I was banging on the window. There was just nothing. I don’t know whether he realised what he’s done, whether he’s in shock himself. He didn’t say nothing. He literally didn’t even change his expression.”
Of the earlier altercation, Ms Lewzey added: “We were all drinking vodka Red Bulls, me, Stephen, Martin and my mum. Martin and Steven were also having an odd Jagerbomb shot.
“He wasn’t being horrible. He kept falling. It wasn’t nothing bad. He was just being annoying. This is my mum’s birthday, it’s the first time anyone’s met him. I don’t want him doing people’s heads in. He wasn’t being nasty to anyone. He just looked like he needed to go to sleep. He could barely stand up. He gets drug tested in work. He doesn’t take drugs. He’s a project worker.
“He wasn’t aggressive at that point. He just gets moody. I could see where it was going. He’d had a lot of vodka Red Bulls and quite a lot of shots. This is like hours and hours later. If I was to hazard a guess, he’d probably been drinking for about seven hours at that point. It was later. I couldn’t say for definite what time. I think he had one can of Stella.
“I ordered him an Uber at that point. He was starting to be arsey. I thought, this was the one day of the year I wanted to enjoy. I’ve had enough. You’re not walking and you’re not driving. I basically just pinned myself to the car door. I was saying, ‘just calm down, I love you, that’s why I’m not letting you get in this car’.
“That conversation just went on and on. The taxi came, he wouldn’t get in it. He just turned nasty. He went ‘get out my f***ing face’. I’ve seen that look before. I’m not doing that. It was like he was gonna hit me.
“I just said ‘Martin, you need to come and get him out this car quick’. It was all quite calm at that point. Our Martin was out there for a while, trying to calm him down and talk sense to him. They came in. I can’t remember whether I said, ‘what’s going on?’. I don’t recall the exact words, it wasn’t nothing horrible. ‘Is he going?’ or something like that. And then, it all just erupted and they started fighting.
“Within a second, they were in the garden. It was just nought to 100 in a second. I just seen them scuffle at the door. They were just battering each other, basically. They were punching each other, like proper punching each other. They were hurting each other.
“Stephen had blood on his face. I don’t know whether Martin had blood on his face. I saw a couple of proper blows landing. I think that was both sides. They were both going at it. I couldn’t really say if one was getting the better of the other. They were rolling around. All you could see was fists. It’s hard to tell who’s doing what.
“There was a lot of shouting, people like ‘calm down, stop it’. I was kind of like, ‘pack it in, stop it’. He was like ‘you’re a f***ing p***y’ to my brother, ‘your whole family are c***s’. He was just antagonising him. My brother was trying to get at him again. Everyone was just like pack it in, and my brother went in.
“[The party] just carried on then. I was like, everyone just have a good time. My brother said ‘I’m sorry, I don’t want you to be falling out with me, I’m not having him threatening my sister’. Apparently, when we were at the door, he said something like ‘I’ll be back for her later’. He’s obviously said something. I didn’t hear that.
“I said ‘Martin, don’t worry about it’. I said, ‘I will never speak to him again after today’. I’ve always said to Stephen, I don’t put up with s***. I won’t be disrespected, you do it once and you’ll be gone. I’m not arsed.
“I meant it. My conversation with him the next day would have been, we’re done. I didn’t get a chance to speak to him. It was the thing by the car, when he was like ‘get out my f***ing face’. He was starting to get nasty, causing murder on my mum’s 70th. I just thought, I don’t want to be with someone who acts like that.”
With Bates having apparently made the return journey in the space of around five minutes, Ms Lewzey added: “It was quick. I was shocked. Never in a million years did I open the door and expect the car to be there. I was almost like, that’s impossible. It’s like a 15 minute drive. I couldn’t comprehend how quick he got there.”
Bates, who is represented by Andrew Haslam KC and Nicola Daley, denies murder, having pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. The trial, before Judge Neil Flewitt KC, continues.