A woman called her boyfriend a "little rat" as he called for help after she had stabbed him in the heart, a jury has heard.
Natalie Bennett is currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of murdering her partner Kasey Anderson. He died a week before his 25th birthday in March this year after being slashed several times with a knife and suffering two stab wounds.
Mr Anderson called 999 as he lay gravely injured in the street outside his 47-year-old girlfriend's home on Carr Lane East in Croxteth and told call handlers "he was dying". Bennett then claimed to the police that he had arrived at her home "like that".
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Her trial continued for a second week today, Monday, with one juror discharged due to medical reasons before she continued giving her evidence. Richard Pratt KC, prosecuting, resumed his cross-examination and said: "You told the jury you were no angel.
"That was in the context of whether you had been physically violent towards him, you said you have long fingernails and it may be when you were pushing him away you might have scratched him. I’m wondering if you can help us with whether you were ever more violent towards him."
Bennett replied: "I wasn’t violent towards him."
Mr Pratt continued: "You’re maintaining that the only time you ever injured him, other than March 11, was when you might have scratched him when you were pushing him away."
Bennett said: "Possibly. I didn’t use no violence towards Kasey."
Mr Pratt then: "He was repeatedly seen by his family members with injuries to his face, black eyes, on a number of occasions. Did you ever seen him with black eyes."
Audible gasps were heard among the public gallery as Bennett replied: "Kasey’s a drug dealer, he’s not this quiet thing. He uses weapons."
Mr Pratt put to her: "You have deliberately set about discrediting him. You’re doing it again. you’re trying to besmirch his character to justify what you did."
Bennett denied this, and when asked the question again said that she had seen Mr Anderson with black eyes "once or twice" but added "I never hit Kasey". When it was said that she had previously spat at him, she said: "I never spat at him, no.
"I think that’s disgusting. I wouldn’t spit in someone’s face."
When Mr Pratt referenced an incident "a few weeks or so before" when Bennett was said to have stabbed Mr Anderson in the head, she responded "I wouldn't stab Kasey in the head". The prosecution silk asserted that footage on the night of the fatal stabbing showed her attempting to do so, and asked: "What were you trying to do?"
Bennett stated: "Get him away from me. When Kasey comes at you he goes black, he’s dangerous."
Mr Pratt said: "He was, at that time, on the phone badly injured pleading for someone to get him help. That’s the time that you stabbed him or attempted to stab him in the head, wasn’t it?"
Bennett replied "I'm sorry". When Mr Pratt asked her "for what?", she continued: "For just acting like that outside, it was shock."
The prosecutor said: "You just told this jury you wouldn’t stab him to the head. This jury has seen you doing just that, as captured by CCTV footage – what do you mean you say you wouldn’t stab him to the head?"
Bennett stated that she "never did". When Mr Pratt asked her whether she "fell short at the last second", she replied: "No."
He continued: "You have been violent to him. And it wasn’t the first time, was it?"
Bennett said: "You don’t know what I went through that day with him. We’ve had little fights but nothing major, just as couples do – just little stupid fights what everyone has."
Mr Pratt later played footage captured by her next door neighbour's Ring doorbell camera, in which a woman could be heard saying "don’t Kasey" before screaming "no" as Mr Anderson rang the police. He is heard telling the call operator: "I’m dying love, I’m dying.
"I’m going here love. I’m going."
A woman's voice then says "you're a little rat mate". Bennett conceded that it was her saying this, but said she "didn't know" why she had.
Mr Pratt asked her: "Are you familiar with the word rat to describe a grass?"
Bennett replied: "No."
Mr Pratt: "Are you, by calling him a rat, accusing him of grassing you up because he was on the phone to the emergency services?"
Bennett: "No. Not at all."
Mr Pratt: "You say something about his head, do you remember? It’s not altogether clear.
"Can you help us with what you said about his head? This is before we saw that stabbing action."
Bennett: "I can’t remember."
Mr Pratt: "You do agree that, at the time you did that stabbing action to his head, he was on the phone to the emergency services desperately trying to get help."
Bennett: "Yes."
Mr Pratt: "At a time when you were under no threat at all from him physically."
Bennett: "I don’t know what you mean."
Mr Pratt: "When you did that action, you were under no physical threat of violence from Kasey."
Bennett: "No, I didn’t hurt him."
Mr Pratt: "You were under no threat of injury or damage were you?"
Bennett: "I don’t know why I done that threat."
Mr Pratt: "You weren’t under any risk of injury when you did it."
Bennett: "No. I'd just been kicked in the stomach, what made me pee myself."
When Mr Pratt asked whether she had caused Mr Anderson any injuries when she had previously "struck out" at him with a screwdriver, Bennett said: "I struck out with it, I must have. I don’t know where.
"I can’t remember, sorry. It was a big struggle, I was scared."
Mr Pratt: "How many times did you use the kitchen knife on him?"
Bennett: "It was the once."
The prosecutor put to the evidence from one paramedic, who reported seeing Mr Anderson with "stab wounds to his sternum, collarbone, right back" and "seeming to have a head injury, as there was blood in the hairline". Another said he had stab wounds "on his back and under one of his armpits", while there was also evidence of slash wounds and a stab wound to the leg.
Mr Pratt said: "How did Kasey suffer injuries, slash injuries, to his front of his neck? You yourself said he had stab wounds all over him."
Bennett replied: "It's because Kasey said."
Mr Pratt: "You were pretending somebody else had attacked Kasey."
Bennett: "I just panicked. Sorry."
Mr Pratt: "That was true, he did have injuries all over him. This wasn’t just a single lunge, was it?
"You were slashing at him with a knife, repeatedly. Weren’t you?
"And you stabbed him, not just to the side of his chest but also to his leg. How did Kasey come about that injury?"
Bennett: " thought it was with the screwdriver."
Mr Pratt: "We see those injuries on the back of his arm. Those wounds were caused when Kasey was trying to defend himself."
Bennett: "I think they were the self harm ones. Sorry."
Mr Pratt: "These injuries, they’re not self harm injuries. They are defensive injuries, aren’t they?
"All part of a continuing and sustained attack by you on him. He was unarmed, he never once produced a knife towards you did he?"
Bennett replied "yes" to the latter submission. Mr Pratt continued: "This was you who had flipped and completely lost your temper."
The defendant said: "Kasey lost his temper, I’m terrified for my life. When he goes, he goes."
Mr Pratt continued: "When you put a knife into somebody’s chest, they’re going to suffer serious harm. Aren’t they?"
Bennett replied: "I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt Kasey like that."
Mr Pratt: "Well you did. This wasn’t just one stab wound.
"You repeatedly used that knife on him at a time when you were in no physical danger, because you had the knife. You knew what you’d done – if this was an instance of self defence, why would you not give that explanation as to what happened when you were being interviewed?"
Bennett: "My solicitor told me not to say nothing."
Mr Pratt: "You had such a story to tell, then again in May, you could have put forward your side of the events. You could have made it quite plain that you did not intend Kasey to suffer any injury, couldn’t you?"
Bennett: "I just listened to my solicitor. Sorry."
Mr Pratt: "You could have told your account of how you only did what you did in self-defence but you hadn’t worked out your story had you, in March, when you were first interviewed? You’ve built that story subsequently."
Bennett: "No."
Mr Pratt: "You’ve also woven in a character attack on Kasey – you have claimed, falsely and exaggerated attacks he has made in the past. You have completely underplayed the violence you have inflicted on him in the past, haven't you?"
Bennett: "No."
Mr Pratt concluded his questioning by asking: "You know when you were outside that house and Kasey was desperately seeking assistance, you knew exactly what you did and you didn’t regret it for a second."
Bennett replied: "I didn’t want to hurt Kasey like that."
Mr Pratt told the jury of four men and eight women during the prosecution's opening last week that Bennett's next door neighbours "heard raised voices" coming from the address at around 5.30pm on Saturday, March 11, before finding Mr Anderson "banging and kicking at their door" roughly 45 minutes later. The 24-year-old was apparently "seeking help", although the occupants were described as being "frightened by the disturbance" and instead called the police.
He too dialled 999 while sitting seriously injured on their doorstep to report that he had been stabbed. Mr Anderson "repeatedly told the operator that he was dying" but added that he "did not know who had stabbed him or where they were".
Many of his answers were said to have been "incoherent", with the casualty left vomiting such were the severity of his wounds. The call handler could hear Bennett's voice in the background though and asked to speak to her instead, at which point she "effectively took over the call".
She told the operator that Mr Anderson had "stab wounds all over him" which she believed were "a bit deep". But the defendant claimed that she did not know who had stabbed him, saying: "He's come in like that."
He was later found to have suffered superficial slash wounds to his neck, right shoulder, lower back and left forearm, as well as a "shallow" stab wound to his right lower leg. But Mr Anderson had also sustained a "deep stab wound" to his chest, which damaged his left lung and heart.
After being rushed to Aintree Hospital, he underwent "what was hoped to be life-saving surgery" but died 20 days later in the early hours of March 31 – just over a week shy of what would have been his 25th birthday on April 8. Mr Pratt said: "The medical evidence suggests that this was not just one blow with a knife, but one of several wounds.
"The slash wounds may have been superficial in nature and the stab to the leg may be of a shallow depth, but together they demonstrate a concerted attack which provides the background for the fatal wound to the chest. It is our case that Natalie Bennett lied to the operator because she knew full well what she had done and had no excuse for it."
Mr Pratt said that Ring doorbell footage recovered from the neighbour's house showed Bennett "holding a knife to the head of the distraught and injured Mr Anderson" with her right hand and "using it either to strike Kasey Anderson in the head or at the very least hold it close to his head". He added: "Thus, we suggest, she continued to demonstrate hostility towards him even after she must have known she had stabbed him in the chest."
When officers arrived, she again alleged that he had arrived at her home "like that" and claimed that the first time she had seen him that evening was when she heard him banging on her next door neighbour's home. Bennett would subsequently give no comment to detectives under interview, but it is anticipated that she will claim during the trial that she inflicted Mr Anderson's fatal wound "in lawful self-defence".
Crime scene investigators later discovered a clump of her hair on the floor of the house, which appeared to have been "forcibly removed" from her head. A "number of sharp implements" were meanwhile found in the kitchen sink, "having apparently been soaked in water at least" and with no blood found upon them while the address was said to have "smelled strongly of cleaning fluids".
Bennett, who is represented by Stanley Reiz KC, denies murder. The trial, before Judge Denis Watson KC, continues.
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