Louise Smith trial: Shane Mays denies 'silencing' teenager after 'sexually assaulting' her

Shane Mays, 30, has today been accused of trying to ‘silence’ 16-year-old Louise after sexually assaulting her, fearing the aspiring veterinary nurse may be pregnant.

Today at Winchester Crown Court he twice said ‘I may have done’ when asked if he caused or contributed to her death but said: ‘I did not kill Louise.’

He has admitted manslaughter.

Under questioning by prosecutor James Newton-Price QC, 6ft tall Mays, of Somborne Drive, Leigh Park, denied trying to ‘touch her sexually’ in a clearing at Havant Thicket.

‘Did you want to have sex with her?’ the prosecutor asked. Mays said: ‘No.’

The QC said: ‘Did you kill her because she was screaming and fighting back.’ Mays said: ‘No.’

Mr Newton-Price said: ‘Did you silence her so she could not tell anyone about what you did?’

Mays said: ‘She was alive.’

He admits repeatedly punching her in the face. Mays told jurors at his murder trial: ‘I couldn’t stop at that time. I lost control of myself.’

But he repeatedly said ‘no’ when asked if he tried to touch her sexually, silence her, or attack her as he feared she was pregnant.

Mays, in whose home 5ft tall Louise was staying prior to her death on May 8, said he was ‘still angry’ after leaving the clearing but then instantly forgot what happened.

‘I have no memory of what I did,’ he said, adding it went when he ‘got down to the path’. He went to his mother’s in Stratfield Gardens and told jurors today he thought he had just been to Emsworth skatepark.

Yesterday he said he remembered what happened in June when in Bristol jail having been arrested for her murder on May 27, some six days after her body was found.

Mr Newton-Price said Mays went out in the evening of May 8 and ‘went back to the body and you poured, probably, some sort of flammable liquid on it and you burned her body’. Mays denied this.

He said he went out searching in Waterlooville for Louise, who his wife Chazlynn Mays had reported missing.

Earlier today Mays told jurors he had been with Louise in a clearing at Havant Thicket talking first about her boyfriend Bradley Kercher, 18, while sitting on some logs.

But he stood up when Louise said she ‘wanted to smoke cannabis again’, Mays said.

‘She said she wants to keep doing it because it keeps her stronger and she feels more alive when she’s doing it.’

He said: ‘I disagreed because it could play on her mental health.’

He admitted starting to lose his temper. But asked why he didn’t walk away, he said: ‘Because that means I’d left her in the woods on her own.’

What would be wrong with that, Mr Newton-Price asked. Mays said: ‘Just in case she goes missing or does something stupid.’

Louise hit Mays to his left side with a branch-sized stick, Mays said, after he told her: ‘You don’t want to end up like your mother’.

He punched Louise to the ground, doing so ‘many times,’ he said, only stopping when he heard a ‘moaning noise’. He said: ‘I couldn’t control myself.’

Asked ‘why were you so angry?’ he said: ‘Because she wound me up and the night before get to me.’

But when asked what happened the night before, he said: ‘She went missing and caused loads of trouble, made my wife cry.’

When the prosecutor pointed out Louise returned at around 4pm on May 7, he said: ‘I was still stressed.’

READ NEXT: Shane Mays says teenager he is accused of murdering 'wanted me to be her dad'

CCTV shows Mays buying four Iceland pizzas later on May 8. Today he said one was for Louise.

‘I suggest Mr Mays that you are no fool.’ Mr Newton-Price said. ‘You were making up a story to try and make sure that people looked in the wrong place.’

Mays said: ‘No.’

This morning Mays said Louise had been leading the way in the one-hour walk to the clearing in Havant Thicket and added: ‘I was following her.’

He also ‘followed her’ into the clearing where her body was later found. Mays said: ‘She said “just to sit in here”.’

The defendant said Louise initially asked him to walk with her to West Leigh skatepark.

‘Are you making this story up?’ he was asked but replied: ‘No.’

‘She wanted to bond,’ Mays said. ‘What did she say?’ Mr Newton-Price asked.

‘That she wanted me to be on my own so she could bond with me because she never gets the chance,’ Mays said.

He said he was ‘happy’ she was ‘opening up’ to him, and agreed it was a ‘father-daughter’ conversation.

Mays said he had been to Havant Thicket ‘a few times’ but when asked about a childhood friend who told police he knew it ‘very well’ he added: ‘I know a little bit of it yes.’

Mays denies murder.

(Proceeding)

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