I didn’t mean to kill her, sobs soldier

A soldier accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend after hacking into her Facebook account wept yesterday as he told a jury he did not mean to kill her.

Ian Lowe, 25, claims he lost self-control in the hours following the online discovery of an affair and said Leanne McNuff had had an abortion without telling him.

The lance corporal in the 1st Battalion the Duke of Lancaster Regiment was also upset she was planning to move away from Droylsden, Greater Manchester, with their four-year-old son Jaden and that Miss McNuff, 23, had also sold his pet dog, Princess.

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A jury at Manchester Crown Court was told he explained in his defence statement they were all factors in his behaviour when he fatally stabbed her on March 11.

Lowe – who is based at Catterick, in North Yorkshire – said he broke into her Facebook page to “stress her out” and to discover evidence to undermine her allegation that he had assaulted her the month before.

He then rang her to confront her with the revelations.

He told the court: “I said ‘I could not believe you have had an abortion and not told me’. She said, ‘I’m glad, I don’t want your child’.”

He added that when she said she was moving away and taking Jaden: “It destroyed me. She was taking everything away from me.”

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Lowe was due to return to camp but instead went to their home in Mellor Street and smashed open the front door.

He told his barrister, David Fish QC, he was not in control of his actions. “I went straight upstairs to get Jaden out of bed,” he explained. “I did not want her taking Jaden away from me.”

He claimed Miss McNuff attacked him with a knife she kept in the bedroom.

“It was in her hand,” he said. “I can’t explain what I did... I wish I could. I’m so sorry for it, I really am.”

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He accepted that he killed her but said he could not remember what happened next and denied taking the knife to the house himself.

Mr Fish asked: “Were you in control of your mind and actions at this time?”

“No,” he replied.

The prosecution said Miss McNuff was stabbed repeatedly in her upper body as she tried to fight off Lowe who also allegedly stamped on her face.

Lowe admits manslaughter but denies murder.

Neil Flewitt QC, cross-examining Lowe, suggested to him it was “convenient” that the knife had not been recovered.

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Lowe replied it was a “double-edged sword” as its discovery could also help his case that he did not murder her.

Lowe admitted he was not “a perfect boyfriend” but said she had fabricated his alleged assault on her in February and was play-acting when she dialled 999.

The court heard he was convicted of assaulting his own mother and had received a six-month conditional discharge.

He had faced being booted out of the Army if he was found guilty of attacking Miss McNuff at trial scheduled for July, Lowe said.

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“She had threatened my Army career,” he said. “She had lied about me.”

The prosecutor asked him why he told Mr Fish he could not remember anything about the stabbing when he said in his defence statement she lunged towards him, he wrestled with her and disarmed her.

“It’s all muddled up,” he said. “She came out of the bedroom and I just got hold of her... I don’t know how I did it.”

The court has heard the pair endured a stormy relationship and Lowe was seeing someone else.

He admitted on the day before the killing he sent a Facebook message to an Army colleague which read: “I need a weapon from the armoury to f****** shoot the bitch.”

The trial continues.

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