Jury hears screams recorded during ‘random beach attack that left woman dead’
A jury has listened to screams recorded on CCTV during a ‘random beach attack’ that killed one woman and left her friend seriously hurt.
Physical trainer Amie Gray, 34, from Poole, died on Durley Chine Beach in Bournemouth on May 24 this year after suffering 10 knife wounds.
Her friend, Leanne Miles, received 20 knife wounds but survived.
Nasen Saadi, 20, from Croydon, south London, is on trial at Winchester Crown Court charged with Ms Gray’s murder and Ms Miles’s attempted murder.
Last week the court heard criminology student Saadi allegedly spent a month planning a random murder so he could ‘know what it would be like to take life’.
Today a jury was played footage from a CCTV camera which shows seating for Chineside Cafe, but in the background screaming can be heard along with a male voice.
Video footage of a police interview with Saadi on May 31 was also played.
In it, detectives ask if he had carried out the attack.
(Picture: Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire)
Wearing a grey jumper with his arms crossed, Saadi replies: ‘I am not responsible and I have no reason to attack someone for no reason.’
He added: ‘I am wrongly accused of mistaken identity, mistakes can happen and I am not responsible.’
Saadi continued: ‘I think just because someone is wearing the same clothes is circumstantial.’
When asked where he was at the time of the attack, he replied ‘no comment’ and when asked if he was the person in the CCTV footage of the incident, he said: “Beaches are popular places, many people, CCTV shows there were many people walking, it’s not just one person.’
When questioned whether if he was that person, he replied: ‘No.’
Saadi has been charged with a further count of wounding Ms Miles with intent to cause grievous bodily harm as an alternative to the attempted murder charge.
He pleaded not guilty to the extra charge and also denies the charges of murder and attempted murder.
Saadi, who was studying criminology at Greenwich University, has pleaded guilty to failing to give his phone number to police.
Charles Sherrard KC, defending, told the jury that his client would not be giving evidence from the witness box and there was no other evidence to be given as part of the defence case.
Summing up the evidence, the judge, Mrs Justice Cutts, told the jury that offences can create feelings of ‘outrage and sympathy’ but told the jurors to put any such feelings on one side.
She added: ‘Emotion of any kind doesn’t assist when deciding whether the evidence against the defendant is sufficiently proved.’
The trial continues.
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