Court

Lawyers Deliver Closing Arguments in Laura Davies Murder Trial
Tues 12th Jan 2016, Yellow Advertiser

JURORS were set to begin deliberating the fate of Jordan Taylor after lawyers gave their closing arguments in his trial this morning.

Taylor, 22, of Churchill Avenue, Pitsea, is accused of murdering Laura Davies, 21, last July.

He admits stabbing Laura to death but denies murder. He has raised a defence of diminished responsibility.

Prosecutor Peter Gair told jurors this morning that Taylor had inflicted 80 stab wounds on Laura because he felt aggrieved that she wanted to end their relationship.

He said that in order to find Taylor guilty of murder, they had to determine he had intended to kill her or cause her serious bodily harm.

He said: “It’s interesting that in this particular case, the nature of the injuries and the method of their infliction may suggest that initially he did not intend to kill Laura.”

He said that after stabbing Laura in the stomach in the kitchen of the staff accommodation they shared at the Essex Horse and Pony Protection Society, he then chased her outside and made dozens of smaller stab wounds all over her body, designed to cause her pain and disfigure her, as ‘punishment’ for ending their relationship.

He said: “What he did was stab her all over her body. It is the Crown’s case that his intention was to cause her serious bodily harm.

“He attacked her not only in the kitchen but then in the wishing well area [of the sanctuary], and then he left her, we say, to die.”

Witnesses testified last week that Laura had planned to end her relationship with Taylor due to his ‘controlling’ behaviour, but planned to let him continue living with her until he finished a vocational course he was on and could get on his own feet.

Mr Gair said the course ended on July 2, the day before Laura was killed.

He said: “That was crunch time. This is the time this relationship was finally going to end.”

He described Taylor as ‘a man at the end of his tether’, adding, “This was one relationship break-up too far, as far as Jordan Taylor could take it.”

On July 3, said Gair, “Unlike previous days, he sends no texts. He has all day to think, to brood, to consider his situation, that ’yet another woman has finished my relationship’.”

That evening, Gair continued, “We know Laura cooked food. We’ve seen the evidence of that. Therefore, after that, the opportunity had finally arisen.”

He said Taylor launched what ‘must have been a violent and sustained attack’ on Laura in the kitchen, based on crime scene evidence.

He said the attack lasted at least 10 minutes, as Taylor chased her outside to an area on the 55-acre sanctuary, close to a wishing well. Part of the attack was caught on CCTV.

He said: “At this time, as we can see, he is inflicting pain on her; minor stabs, a couple of millimetres, all over her body.”

He said Taylor’s attack included multiple stab wounds to Laura’s face and torso. He asked jurors: “Is this a man saying, ‘That’s your looks gone, if you survive’? Look at what he did to her left breast. This is a man who is punishing and inflicting pain.

“What did Jordan Taylor do after that? He picked Laura up, carried her off and put her near the bushes. Why? He hid her.”

He said Taylor placed a green bucket over a pool of blood to conceal it, telling jurors, “If this is at half-past-eight at night, he’s got 11-and-a-half hours after that to decide what to do.”

However, a witness had spotted the attack in progress and called police.

Testifying last week, Taylor claimed Laura had pulled a knife on him first but that he had disarmed her, placing the knife on a counter.

He claimed she continued to kick and punch him and that he ‘stupidly’ grabbed the knife and stabbed her to stop the attack.

Mr Gair described the account as, “Absolute poppycock. Made-up. Unbelievable.”

He questioned why Laura – who was dressed in her night clothes and had just cooked dinner – would suddenly attack Taylor, telling jurors, “He can give you, I would say, no explanation. Did she have a propensity for violence? No.

“Even the defendant’s own account to you was that, ‘I couldn’t believe this was happening’. Well, I invite you not to believe it either.”

Taylor also claimed that days before the killing, Laura had threatened to kill him in his sleep.

Mr Gair said Taylor told jurors the alleged threat had caused him to have one sleepless night, but told a psychologist it was four sleepless nights.

Mr Gair said the story, ‘should be treated with more than a considerable degree of scepticism’.

He said jurors had seen text messages between Taylor and Laura in the final days of her life and asked them to consider whether it seemed like Taylor was conversing with ‘a homicidal maniac who is going to kill him’.

He described Taylor’s account as, “Patently untrue and wholly unreliable; in the main, a complete pack of lies designed to limit or diminish his criminal responsibility before you.”

He said Taylor told jurors that Laura ‘came at him’ once with the knife, but had told a psychologist she had come at him twice.

He said of Taylor’s defence: “Where does common sense lie? Is his account something that you think, ’Okay, could be true’? Or when you first heard it, you thought, ’What? Where has this come from?

“The answer is, ladies and gentlemen, it has come from his imagination. It doesn’t fit with logic and even he can’t get it right.”

Defence lawyer Vincent Coughlin echoed Mr Gair’s comments but said they demonstrated the defence’s argument that Taylor was mentally unwell.

He told jurors: “He is living in his own little world.”

Setting out the case for diminished responsibility, defence lawyer Mr Coughlin said an expert who assessed Taylor observed he showed no emotion when discussing how he had killed Laura.

He told jurors: “The only time he showed emotion was a mild irritability and frustration at the way people had repeatedly let him down.”

He said Taylor had previously been diagnosed with depression and had a history of suicidal urges.

The expert concluded Taylor had ‘severe personality disorder’ which ‘significantly’ contributed to his killing of Laura Davies.

However, a prosecution expert who also interviewed Taylor disagreed.

Mr Coughlin argued that the prosecution’s description of the attack and its claim that Taylor was not mentally unwell did not tally.

Of the claims that Taylor had ‘tortured’ Laura for a prolonged period, Mr Coughlin said: “We would submit they are rather startling, given they are being [said about] a man whose history, on the prosecution’s case, was really no more than just an example of [someone] being a bit sad.

“A personality which, on the prosecution’s case, is normal. Is there, in any sense of the word, anything normal about the way Laura Davies met her death last July?”

He suggested Taylor’s testimony in the trial, apportioning some blame to his victim, could be seen as evidence of somebody with a personality disorder.

He described his client as somebody who, “despite taking his time to inflict more than 80 stab wounds on a slight, defenceless, 21-year-old girl, can stand in front of you and say that he feels she is in some way responsible for what happened to her... That was not, we submit, an entirely normal thing to say.”

Mr Coughlin referenced a quote from Taylor’s testimony, in which he described having an out-of-body experience during the killing.

Taylor told jurors: “It’s as if I’m watching from a bird’s eye view, looking down. I couldn’t think or feel anything. It’s just these spasms through my body. It’s crazy.”

He said even the prosecution’s expert had acknowledged that Taylor did not appear to have an objective perspective on his actions and still attributed some blame to Laura.

Mr Coughlin said: “They are not normal traits and the dysfunctional disorder is there for all to see.

“There is no objective, rational explanation for the way Laura met with her death. We are, I would submit, not dealing with a normal person.”

Praising the ‘quiet dignity’ with which Laura’s family had sat throughout the trial, Mr Coughlin told jurors they must not let their empathy with her relatives affect their decision-making, nor their ‘obvious revulsion and horror at Jordan Taylor’s unlawful killing of Laura Davies’.

He told them: “You must put your sympathy aside when you consider what is the right verdict in this case. You have all sworn to do try this case on the evidence.”

Presiding judge Charles Gratwicke told jurors today that in order to find Taylor was suffering from diminished responsibility, they must find he was suffering from a recognised mental condition which impaired his ability at the time of the offence to either form a rational judgement or exercise self control.

He instructed the panel of eight women and four men that as the defence were contending diminished responsibility, it fell on the defence to prove it on the balance of probability.

If jurors decide Taylor was suffering from diminished responsibility, they will be entitled to find him guilty of manslaughter instead of murder.

The judge was due to sum up the case this afternoon, after which jurors were expected to retire to deliberate their verdict.

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