Family 'warned Mary-Ann before her death'

Murdered teenager Mary-Ann Leneghan was in fear of being “fitted up” in the days before her death, a British court heard today.

The 16-year-old told an aunt that “there would be trouble” because her 18-year-old friend, a woman who cannot be named, had set up a London-based man to be robbed of his drugs at a flat he was renting in Reading, a trial at the Berkshire town’s Crown Court was told.

The jury heard that Mary-Ann had been warned by her family for some time to stay away from the older girl.

It is said that the set-up, on Adrian Thomas, also known as “Redz”, was the motive for the revenge attack on Mary-Ann and her friend last May.

The pair were abducted in central Reading by a gang of six men, including Thomas, and taken to a nearby guesthouse, it is alleged.

There the two girls were subjected to repeated sexual assaults before being driven to Reading’s Prospect Park to be killed, the trial has heard.

While Mary-Ann died from stab wounds, her friend survived being shot in the head and left for dead.

Six men are now on trial for abduction, assault, rape, murder and attempted murder.

In evidence today, Mary-Ann’s aunt Jennifer Hazelton said her niece had been repeatedly advised by her family not to associate with her older friend, who was believed to be hanging around with drug dealers.

Mrs Hazelton told the jury that in the weeks before her murder, Mary-Ann told her about her friend setting up Thomas, her then boyfriend, to be robbed at his flat in Oxford Road, Reading.

“Mary-Ann said that when this boy found out, there would be trouble because of it,” Mrs Hazelton said.

“I told her (Mary-Ann) she had to stay away from her (the friend).”

In an interview with police, Mrs Hazelton said Mary-Ann had told her she was “in fear of being fitted up because of what (her older friend) had done”.

She said Mary-Ann had gone to London with her older friend in the months before the murder, where on one occasion her friend spent time with another “boyfriend” called BK (Burger King).

Mrs Hazelton wept as she recalled an occasion when Mary-Ann’s mother had also told her late daughter “to stay away from (her older friend)”.

Mary-Ann was said to have referred to her friend as a “bitch” and as “not a true friend”.

On one of the girls’ trips to London, Mary-Ann was left alone and without a phone in the city after her friend went to see her boyfriend BK, the jury was told.

Mary-Ann’s aunt said of her niece that she had been influenced by the older girl, adding: “It made her feel good, I suppose, to be hanging around with an older girl.”

Mary-Ann’s sister, Mandy Harris, told the court in evidence that she too had been concerned about her younger sibling’s relationship with the older friend.

“She (the friend) used to hang around with older black men,” she said.

“We were led to believe that the black men she was hanging around with were drug dealers.

“The names she would call were names I knew as drug dealers.”

All six defendants are charged with murder, attempted murder, rape, kidnap and assault.

The men deny all charges except Michael Johnson, 19, of Southfields, south west London, who admits murder, attempted murder and kidnap, although he denies rape and assault.

Jamaile Morally, 22, of Balham, south London, denies all charges and an additional count of rape against the 18-year-old girl.

His brother, Joshua Morally, 23, also of Balham, denies murder, attempted murder and rape but has admitted assault and kidnap.

Adrian Thomas, 20, of Battersea, south west London, Llewellyn Adams, 24, of Balham, and 18-year-old Indrit Krasniqi of Chiswick, west London, deny all the charges.