Man accused of driving partner to suicide with abuse drank prosecco after being charged
A man accused of driving his vulnerable partner to suicide after subjecting her to years of abuse swigged Prosecco and called her mum a ‘f***ing slag’ after being charged with manslaughter.
Kiena Dawes, 23, left a note saying ‘I was murdered’ before ending her life on a railway line in Lancashire in July 2022.
She wrote that fiancé Ryan Wellings, 30, had ‘killed me’ and labelled him a ‘monster’ and a ‘bully’.
Wellings is on trial for her manslaughter and additional charges of assault and coercive and controlling behaviour towards Kiena between January 2020 and her death.
Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, pressed Wellings about Kiena’s description of him in her tragic note.
‘She says you killed her in that note, just hours before she took her own life,’ he said.
‘At the time Kiena took her own life, she was thinking about you and regarded you as a monster.’
Sobbing in the witness box, Wellings replied: ‘I’m not a monster. Never have been.’
During the trial, jurors have heard how Wellings got tattoos of Kiena’s name and face within a week of meeting her and ‘sweeping her off her feet’ in January 2020.
But it has been claimed she soon confided in a friend that her ‘fairytale had turned into a nightmare’ because of his physical and emotional abuse.
The court has heard Kiena once claimed that in addition to hurting her, Wellings put a drill to her face and threatened to take her teeth out with it.
Cross-examining Wellings, Mr Greaney challenged him about a short video he made within an hour of leaving the police station having been charged with manslaughter on June 3 last year.
The clip, with loud backing music, showed him being driven in a car, wearing sunglasses and holding a bottle, saying: ‘I’m driving around with a bottle of prosecco.
‘I have been told off an hour ago on a manslaughter charge.
‘It’s all f****** s**t.
‘Angela Dawes (Kiena’s mother), you need to take the blame for abandoning your daughter and going to Greece.
‘You are a f****** slag.’
Mr Greaney said: ‘You uploaded it on purpose to intimidate the Dawes family and show them who is boss.
‘What we see there is the real Ryan Wellings. Ryan Wellings the bully.
‘The entitled person. The person who thinks he can do what he wants to people and say what he wants.’
Wellings replied: ‘I did not know what I was doing. I know I did wrong and did some stupid things. That’s me hurting. Being blamed for killing my kid’s mum, the woman I loved.’
He told jurors he was sleep-deprived and had downed bottles of prosecco and taken drugs at the time but maintained he uploaded the video to Facebook by accident and later deleted it.
Wellings denies all three charges he faces.
The trial continues.
Need support?
For emotional support, you can call the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org, visit a Samaritans branch in person or go to the Samaritans website.
Their HOPELINE247 is open every day of the year, 24 hours a day. You can call 0800 068 4141, text 88247 or email: pat@papyrus-uk.org.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.