Louise Smith murder trial: Shane Mays admits 'losing control of temper' in attack on 16-year-old

The 30-year-old is on trial at Winchester Crown Court where he denies the 16-year-old’s murder but has admitted her manslaughter.

Today jurors heard Mays, the husband of Louise’s aunt Chazlynn Mays, accepted his attack on the girl at Havant Thicket on May 8 would have killed her.

Her burned body was found 13 days later on May 21 next to two scorched fallen tree trunks, the court heard yesterday.

Mays’ barrister outlined why he denies murder to jurors today after prosecutor James Newton-Price QC finished detailing the prosecution case.

The prosecutor said: ‘It's clear her killer lured her or persuaded her to walk to a remote location. He attacked her. We say you can conclude that this was an attack of unimaginable cruelty towards a vulnerable 16-year-old girl.’

He added: ‘Louise was just 16. She was anxious, needy, mentally fragile and vulnerable.

‘Vulnerable to the attention of a predatory man who was apparently flirting with her and living with her in the same small flat.

‘Shane Mays was the last person to see her alive.’

He said: ‘He had the opportunity, he knew the local terrain very well. He alone was with her when she died.’

Mays showed ‘breathtaking brutality’ when he defiled her body, he added.

Mays denies setting fire or defiling her body, jurors were told.

A stick at the scene had DNA on it 38m times more likely to be Mays’ DNA than anyone else, the court heard.

Blood stains on Mays’ white Adidas trainer were more than one billion times likely to be Louise’s, and matched with him ‘punching her many times,’ a forensic scientist’s report found.

Defending Mays, Andrew Langdon QC said: ‘By his plea of manslaughter Mr Mays accepts that on Friday, May 8, having walked with Louise to Havant Thicket he attacked her.

‘His case is that he did so because of an argument which resulted in his losing control of his temper.

‘He repeatedly punched her and he accepts that his attack on her would have caused or contributed to her subsequent death.

‘He did not intend to kill her or to cause her really serious injury.’

Mr Langdon added: ‘He accepts that he told others that he had walked Louise to Emsworth park when he in fact had not done so.

‘He accepts the CCTV sightings identify him. He accepts the interpretations of the movements of Louise’s phone.’

READ NEXT: Live coverage of the trial of Shane Mays as it happens

Louise went missing on May 8 and was reported missing by her aunt, known as CJ. Louise had been living with CJ and the defendant since April 26 at their home in Ringwood House, Somborne Drive in Leigh Park.Mr Newton-Price said ‘when you consider all the evidence in this case... the person who burned and defiled her body.... was the defendant Shane Mays’.

When arrested on suspicion of murder he told police in a prepared statement: ‘I have had no involvement at all in the murder of Louise Smith.’

Police scoured 450 hours of CCTV to check out his ‘lie’ that he took Louise to Emsworth on May 8.

Mays, of Somborne Drive, Leigh Park, denies murder.

(Proceeding)

READ NEXT: Jurors told defendant 'brutally' killed teenager before burning 'violated' body in sexual murder

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