Dad-of-six told police he was being abused weeks before ex 'murdered him'
Kirsty Carless, 31, was 'motivated by anger and jealousy' when she stabbed Louis Price, 31, in the heart after a friend sent her a picture of his dating profile on Tinder, Stafford Crown Court heard.
Jurors have been told Mr Price was considered by police to be 'at very high risk of domestic abuse' before his death.
Giving evidence, friend Demi-Louise Deakin recalled Mr Price confiding in her at a funeral a month before he died, saying: 'He said he was scared of Kirsty and if he didn't leave soon something bad would happen to him.
'He said she can be violent towards him.'
Ms Deakin, who lived near Carless, described another incident where Carless allegedly poured bleach over Mr Price's clothes and threw a shoe out of the window which hit him on the head.
Another neighbour told the court she called the police after witnessing Carless chasing and hitting Mr Price in the ribs with a metal pole outside the house while he had his arms up protecting his head.
Jurors were shown police body-worn video footage from when officers attended Carless' address on November 11, 2024.
They were told Mr Price phoned 999 to say Carless had poured bleach over tracksuits worth £400, had thrown a glass candle holder at him, pulled him down the stairs and choked him.
As he was moved away from the house by one of the officers, Mr Price appeared to become emotional, saying: 'It's f****** embarrassing … it can't keep happening, man.'
In a witness statement after the incident, he said the relationship 'on the whole, has been abusive'.
He said: 'She has constantly been abusive towards me, stopped me doing things I enjoy like football, and physically abused me.'
Mr Price added: 'She has abused me for years now yet I'm always the one that gets arrested.'
Jurors heard of several incidents in which the police had been called.
Mr Price was arrested on one occasion in May 2023 after Carless accused him of punching her.
She retracted her statement two months later, telling police: 'It was 50/50 and we hit each other, I hurt him as much as he hurt me, I felt so pressured to make it sound one-sided by my social worker at the time.
'It is wrong what I said in my original statement, I don't want to go to court and lie about what happened.'
In another incident that September, Carless called police to say Mr Price had hit her before the call ended and later claimed a neighbour had stolen her phone and pretended to be her when officers traced her.
The court was also told Carless admitted to police she had made up allegations that Mr Price had grabbed her by the throat three times after she confronted him about messages on his phone in November 2023. More Trending
She told officers it was a 'way of getting back at him for speaking to other women', jurors heard.
Carless denies murder and possessing an offensive weapon in a public place in relation to the fatal incident on December 25, 2024.
She also denies one count of intentional strangulation and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in relation to the incident on November 11, 2024.
The trial continues.
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