The trial of Emma Walsh, who is accused of murdering her boyfriend Gary Morgan, began at Liverpool Crown Court this week.
The 31-year-old defendant stabbed her partner in the heart at her home on Lavan Close in Everton on the evening of Sunday, April 10, after the couple had returned from watching the football in the pub. She then claimed that he had attended at the property with his ultimately fatal injury after being attacked by "some fella in town".
Here, we have recapped on everything that the jury of six men and six women has been told to date.
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Who was Gary Morgan?
Mr Morgan, from Prescot, was a dad and one of six brothers. The 36-year-old had his own paving business, Amazing Paving, having previously worked for a firm called Penketh Fencing.
Those who have taken to the stand over the past few days described him as a "gentle giant", "the most gentle, kindest person" and a "quiet, shy guy".
Who is Emma Walsh?
Little has been said of Walsh's personal circumstances in court so far. She lived at the bungalow on Lavan Close with her dad and is a mum, having told police who attended the scene that it was her son's birthday the day after Mr Morgan's death.
They met in March 2021 and often went drinking together, while "cocaine use figured". But the pair were also known to attend church together.
Pub visit ended in fatal stabbing
John Benson KC, prosecuting, described how Walsh, Mr Morgan and his friend Lee Taylor had gone to the Belmont pub on West Derby Road in the afternoon to watch Liverpool FC's Premier League game at Manchester City on the television. The 4pm kick-off ended in a 2-2 draw.
They remained on the premises for a few hours after the match ended, walking back to Lavan Close together shortly before 10pm after Mr Taylor had got the bus home. At around 11.20pm, Walsh rang 999 and told the North West Ambulance Service that Mr Morgan was "cold and had gone purple".
She also informed the call handler that he had "had an argument with some fella in town and when he returned he had a puncture wound to his chest". The ambulance service informed the police, who found the gravely injured man lying on the living room floor and Walsh attempting CPR.
Mr Morgan had sustained a knife wound to the left side of chest, was unresponsive and in cardiac arrest. He was rushed to the Royal Liverpool Hospital in a critical condition, but was pronounced dead shortly after midnight.
A post-mortem investigation later found he had suffered a "deep stab wound", with the knife having passed through his ribs and left lung and into the heart. A smaller knife wound to his upper left arm was also discovered, as was a minor cut on Mr Morgan's neck.
What is her defence?
The defence case has not yet opened, but it is anticipated that Walsh's counsel will be claiming she acted in self-defence. Her accounts of what happened changed in the immediate aftermath of Mr Morgan's death.
Walsh repeated what she had said to NWAS to police attending the scene, falsely stating that they had not walked home together. She said he had later "pulled his top up" to reveal the stab wound, adding: "He’s been alright for the next half hour or so."
Then, under interview in the early afternoon of April 11, she told detectives that Mr Morgan had smashed a speaker during an argument. Walsh alleged that she had then pushed him to the floor and he had been injured by a broken piece of plastic from the device.
She was interviewed again the next day, by which time the post-mortem had concluded that his wound could not have been caused by the broken piece of plastic and was consistent with a bloodstained knife which was found in the kitchen sink. Walsh said at this stage: "We’ve had a few drinks at home, we went to the pub, we got back home.
"He smashed me speaker. He started getting hostile, he’s pushed me, I’ve pushed him.
"So I went into the kitchen, just to get out the way, and then he’s come in and started grabbing me. He’s screaming in my face, pushing me - so I picked up a knife, but he’s had hold of me.
"I only hit him that side, and then we both took the jumper off. Then he started coming at me speaking all verbal, shouting, being abusive to me and then he just started coming at me, grabbing me, pushing me.
"He always grabs me by the throat and stuff, I’ve been here a few times through domestic violence and stuff. I’ve got pictures on me phone of a bust nose, black eyes, but this time it just went too far."
In custody, Walsh was noted to have "some old bruises" as well a small abrasion under her left eye with surrounding bruising. When informed of Mr Morgan's death, she "became extremely upset, slumped down and started crying".
She said at this point: "Gary, bring him back. He was everything for me.
"I was the one doing CPR. Sometimes I do things I can't remember, but we're all only human."
Argument on walk home
Walsh's neighbour John Daly spoke of seeing an argument between the two parties when he looked out of his window at around 10.30pm on the night in question. He had been waiting to watch Match of the Day 2 when he saw Walsh and Mr Morgan walking home from the pub.
The altercation lasted a "couple of minutes". Mr Daly said: "They seemed to be arguing, but not shouting loud.
"It could have been a friendly argument. I don't know."
Mr Daly said he saw Walsh "push him away", adding: "Whether that was friendly or not friendly, I don't know.
"They seemed to stop, and they seemed to be having words. I seen the girl's hand go up to the boy.
"He seemed to jerk back. If they were playing around or arguing, I couldn't really say."
Mr Daly also reported having seen the couple argue previously. He recalled: "I just thought they were a regular couple.
"I would see them arguing sometimes. I heard an argument, I looked out the window.
"I seen the girlfriend throwing punches and trying to scratch him. They were basically having a fight, but mainly her - I seen two people arguing and the girl throwing punches."
Mr Daly said Walsh's punches were landing, and she was attempting to scratch Mr Morgan's face.
Injuries at defendant's hands
A series of witnesses reported seeing Mr Morgan with injuries which he said had been inflicted by Walsh over the course of their year-long relationship. This included her attacking him with the "tools of his trade" - such as a rake, a spirit level and knives.
Mr Taylor having seen him with a black eye after Walsh attacked him with a rake while he was "on a job". Meanwhile, Mr Morgan's cousin Lorna Gerrish "didn't recognise" him due to his facial injuries when she bumped into him in A&E on March 1 this year.
He told the midwifery lecturer "my Mrs has attacked me". When she was giving her relative a lift home, he described how Walsh had "jeopardized" his attempts to resume contact with his daughter after she had become "verbally abusive towards the mother of his daughter".
Jason Keating, a customer turned friend of Mr Morgan's, said he had last seen the landscaper on March 17 when he was working on a house near Sefton Park. He described his pal as being "black and blue with lacerations around his nose".
Mr Morgan told Mr Keating that Walsh had "tried to bite his nose off and stolen his phone off him". The witness reported that the former had told him: "She's attacked me again.
"She's a psychopath. She batters me and she tried to bite my nose off."
Mr Keating said Mr Morgan "started filling up and was getting physically upset", adding: "As I walked away, he chuckled as he said 'I can't help it. I love her, but I know she's going to try to kill me'."
Lee Nolan, who described Mr Morgan as his "best mate", recalled seeing him with a black eye and a scar under his ear from "where she'd tried to stab him previously". Another of his customers Linda Turner remembered him opening up to her while he was working for her in the autumn of 2021.
She said from the witness box: "He just didn't look himself. He actually looked like he'd already done a day's work, he looked knackered.
"He looked really low in himself. I noticed a difference in him.
"He just said she'd attacked him at the weekend and she'd punched him with a knife. He looked quite tearful, quite vulnerable at that point.
"He had a shirt on with no collar, and just below it you could see a line and another line below it - just about an inch each. I said 'you've got two marks on your neck'.
"I showed him in the mirror and he looked shocked. I said 'if that had been any closer to your neck, we wouldn't be having this conversation'."
Mr Morgan went to stay with his brother Paul and his partner of 20 years Diane Harvey after one incident with Walsh, because police wanted to "separate the two". He attended at their home with a "very deep cut" on his forehead, although he ignored their pleas for him to go to hospital.
Ms Harvey said: "He had bloodstained clothes and a big gash on his eyebrow. He said Ms Walsh had hit him with a spirit level."
She also remembered seeing Mr Morgan with "black eyes, bite marks and bruising". Ms Harvey told him to finish the relationship on one occasion, adding: "If you don't, she's probably going to kill you."
Another time, she "asked if he wanted to be buried or cremated, because if he carried on with Ms Walsh that would be the decision his mum would have to make".
Mr Benson told jurors on Wednesday: "It was, the prosecution say, a volatile relationship punctuated by frequent rows and arguments and, sadly, violence. The defendant, usually intoxicated, was violent towards Gary Morgan.
"Witnesses speak of the defendant losing her temper over something and nothing and behaving aggressively. On occasion, the police had been called to deal with heated arguments and alleged assaults involving the defendant and the deceased.
"There were allegations and counter allegations. Whilst there may have been occasional incidents when the defendant himself reacted violently towards the defendant’s aggression, the overall impression is of a relationship in which the defendant was controlling, abusive and could - and did - lose her temper very easily, was jealous of any contact that the defendant had with other women or that she perceived he had or may have had.
"Her anger moved very quickly to violence. On April 10, there was a further incident in a pattern of violence which proved fatal."
Deceased's arrest
Richard Pratt KC, defending, has mentioned in passing during his questioning of witnesses that Mr Morgan was arrested on suspicion of assault on February 19 following an incident in the street. He was subsequently released on bail, one of the conditions of which prevented him from contacting Walsh.
Walsh denies one count of murder. The trial, before the Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC, continues and will resume on Tuesday.
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