Doncaster drugs gang executed my mum, says teenager accused of her murder

The teenager repeatedly attacked Leah Whittle, 42, in the flat they shared in Weymouth, Dorset, Winchester Crown Court was told.

Richard Smith QC, prosecuting, told the jury that the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had an interest in knives and had a temper, but he said the reason for the alleged murder would never be known.

The boy, now 17, denies the killing in July this year and said that men came from Doncaster in South Yorkshire to execute his mother because his brother had got into trouble over a drug debt.

He told friends and the police that he had seen the man or men attack his mother through a bathroom door and when they had left he had bolted the door, taken some money from his mother’s purse and escaped through a window and down a drainpipe.

Mr Smith told the jury that the defendant had spoken to a girlfriend in the hours before his mother was murdered to say she only had a couple of days to live because of the problems over the drug debt.

But Mr Smith alleged that this was just “setting a scene for some sort of attack on his mother” and that the teenager had either formed a murderous intent or the bravado of the conversation had spurred him on to commit murder because he was “brooding” over something that had happened between them.

He told the jury that the youngster should have called 999 or screamed for help, or called an ambulance, but he did nothing but leave the flat.

He eventually went to a friend’s house with his mother’s blood on his face and on his socks, the court heard. He was described as calm when he got there but he maintained he had witnessed the attack.

He said to friends he had disposed of a knife near to the flat but no weapon was ever found, the court heard.

Unemployed Ms Whittle had moved to Dorset after living in Yorkshire until her marriage broken down.

The court heard that her relationship with her son was often less than harmonious but the teenager told police the pair were close.

The trial is expected to last 12 days.