Friend of murdered Mary-Ann tells of arson attack

A teenager shot in the head beside her dying friend Mary-Ann Leneghan told a British court today that she had been the victim of a potentially fatal arson attack just a short time beforehand.

The 19-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told Reading Crown Court that less than a month before the murder of Mary-Ann she, herself, had suffered an attempt to burn down her house.

The trial of six men jointly accused of murder, attempted murder, kidnap, rape and serious assault, has heard that the teenager was with Mary-Ann in a car park in Reading, Berkshire, on the night of May 6 last year when they were allegedly bundled into the back of a car.

The jury has been told that they were then driven to a hotel room and tortured before being taken to a park to die.

Sixteen-year-old Mary-Ann was found dead in Reading’s Prospect Park early on the morning of May 7 after her friend, who survived being shot in the head, staggered to a nearby road and raised the alarm to a passer-by.

One of those in the dock – 20-year-old Adrian Thomas of Battersea, south London, known to the girls as “Redz” – blamed Mary-Ann or both of them for “setting up” a robbery on a flat which he was renting in Reading shortly beforehand.

During cross-examination by Michael Borelli QC, representing 22-year-old Jamaile Morally, of Balham, south London, the teenager was asked whether it was not in fact she who had set Redz up rather than Mary-Ann and whether she blamed herself.

The court heard that shortly after the fatal attack the teenager had described herself as a “horrible person”.

He also told the court that she had believed she had suffered “bad luck”.

Mr Borelli asked her whether an arson attack in April 2005 had been part of the bad luck.

She replied: “It did bother me because somebody tried to kill my family, that was part of the bad luck.”

Asked whether she was referring to an attack in April, she said: “Yes, someone tried to set fire to my house, yes.”

Mr Borelli asked: “Was that because of anything that you had done?”

The teenager replied: “I don’t know why someone did that.”

Referring to the teenager’s conversation with the man who raised the alarm shortly after Mary-Ann’s murder he told the court that she had spoken of the arson attack.

Mr Borelli asked: “Did you relate in your own mind at the time the fact that your house had been set fire to as having anything to do with what had just happened to you?”

The woman replied that she had mentioned the arson attack because it would help emergency services find her house as the door was “slightly burned”.

Mr Borelli went to say to the woman: “You knew that the whole reason that your friend had ended up being killed was because of an incident that was your responsibility, a robbery.”

The teenager responded: “No, that is not true. What did you say? My responsibility?”

Mr Borelli: “I said the robbery was your responsibility and you knew the reason she was dead was because of that incident, the robbery.”

Witness: “If it was my responsibility why didn’t they just kill me and not Mary-Ann if that was the case?”

She told the court that both she and Mary-Ann had been “hanging out” with drug dealers among whom she counted Redz to be one.

Returning to the woman’s alleged ordeal in the hotel room before they were driven to Prospect Park where Mary-Ann was killed, Mr Borelli asked about a telephone call she made to her boyfriend.

The woman told the court that it had been Mary-Ann who had suggested that she call her boyfriend, something Mr Borelli described as a “gratuitous lie”.

The teenager replied: “Were you there? How do you know?”

Mr Borelli: “It is an example of what you have done continually in this investigation which is to blame Mary-Ann for things that you were responsible for.”

The teenager: “I don’t recall blaming anyone. Do you think I like sitting here? Do you think I like having them (referring to the men in the dock) being here? Do you think I like sending them to prison? If I didn’t have to be here I wouldn’t be here.”

Showing the woman a transcript of the passer-by’s call to an emergency services operator he pointed to a reference where she was overheard saying: “I’m a horrible person.”

Mr Borelli asked what was going through her mind when she had made this comment to which she replied: “I’m assuming that I said that because when somebody tries to kill you it knocks your confidence a hell of a lot and I obviously felt about that big.”

Mr Borelli said: “Your confidence had been knocked.”

The teenager: “I felt disgusted with myself for having been raped, I felt disgusting, I looked disgusting.”

Mr Borelli: “I would suggest that you knew that you had been responsible for setting Redz up in the robbery.”

The teenager: “Well, I already told you, no.”

In addition to Thomas and Morally those in the dock include Morally’s 23-year-old brother Joshua, of Balham; 24-year-old Llewellyn Adams, also of Balham; 18-year-old Indrit Krasniqi of Chiswick, West London; and 19-year-old Michael Johnson of Southfields, South West London.

Joshua Morally has admitted two counts of kidnap but denies murder, attempted murder, rape and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

The other five deny all charges.