Man thought stabbed girl was 'messing around'

A man who found a nine-year-old girl after she had been stabbed initially thought she was "messing around", a court has heard.

Ollie Sheppard, who was temporarily staying at Aria Thorpe's Weston-super-Mare home when he found her on 15 December, told Bristol Crown Court he called 999 and attempted CPR after realising she was face down and covered in blood.

A post-mortem examination found Aria had suffered a single stab wound to the chest and would have "died very swiftly from her injury", jurors were told.

A 16-year-old boy - who cannot be named for legal reasons - is currently on trial at Bristol Crown Court accused of the murder and manslaughter of Aria, both of which he denies.

On Tuesday, Sheppard told jurors he entered Aria's home after finishing work at 18:03 GMT.

Describing the house, he said: "It felt cold. Everything was silent.

"One of the kitchen drawers was wide open. I went from the kitchen into the hallway.

"I couldn't push open the door because the door to the cupboard under the stairs was open.

"I managed to push my way through. As I pushed through the door, I just walked down the hallway, and I turned round by the stairs, and I saw Aria on the floor."

Responding to prosecutor Ray Tully KC asking what his first thought was when he saw Aria on the floor, Sheppard said: "She was messing around.

"I called her name, Aria, and pretty much I had put two and two together and I saw blood on her arm.

"She was tucked in by the door, face down. There wasn't much blood visible because of the hard flooring, the carpet was dark.

"I couldn't see any mark that stood out and as I said there was blood on her arm, and her school top was covered in blood."

Sheppard said he rang Aria's mother, who did not answer the phone because she was at work, and then called 999.

Jurors also heard from neighbour Ashley Mansell, who said he heard a male shouting at the time of the incident.

"I heard shouting, three 'no, no, noes'. It was said in a tone of disbelief. It immediately made me think it was an unusual thing to hear," he said.

"It was more like a 'can't believe it' no," he told jurors.

"A short time after my attention was drawn to blue flashing lights," he added.

Det Con Charlie Cook told Bristol Crown Court the defendant was later arrested on a train as it was about to depart Worle Railway Station.

He added phone records and CCTV showed the defendant walked to the station after the incident and spoke to "several young people" for 12 minutes in a shelter near the platform before boarding the train.

As he spoke to the group, the defendant "appeared to re-enact or show others what had happened", Cook told the court.