Louise Smith trial: Shane Mays says teenager he is accused of murdering 'wanted me to be her dad'

Jurors are today hearing from Mays, 30, for the first time at Winchester Crown Court where he is standing trial charged with murdering the 16-year-old on May 8 in Havant Thicket.

Louise’s body was found 13 days later. Mays has admitted her manslaughter but denies murder and defiling her body.

Jurors have been told Louise lived with Mays and his wife Chazlynn Mays, known as CJ, in Ringwood House, Somborne Drive, Leigh Park, from late April this year.

Arguments erupted between him and Louise, Mays said, over ‘doing chores, washing up, cleaning, hoovering up around her bed, that sort of thing really’.

He said he ‘did mind’ that Louise and her boyfriend Bradley Kercher, now 18, were smoking cannabis in the flat, and his wife tried to get Louise to stop.

He said CJ and Louise would argue when Louise came back to the flat after smoking it too. He said she ‘just looked... monged all the time’.

Mays said Louise ‘seemed happy’ when she moved into Ringwood House with Mays and CJ in late April and was asked how she got on with her mother Rebecca Cooper. May said: ‘Not very well.’

Snapchat video shown to the jury of Mays tickling Louise’s feet was ‘playful,’ Mays said and added he ‘did it with all the kids that come to stay’. Other relatives' children had previously stayed at the flat, he said.

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Louise had lived with Mays and his wife in Montague Road, North End, for ‘sometimes a couple of weeks, sometimes months,’ the defendant said, adding he first met the teenager when she was 13.

Louise sent CJ a message this year saying she wanted to call her mum, and Mays dad. Mr Langdon asked how long he knew she wanted to do that.

‘I’ve always known since Montague,’ Mays said. ‘She wanted me to be her dad down in Montague, then it just went [wrong].’

Mays said Louise’s mother ‘put a stop to Louise living with us,’ and confirmed her living with them in North End ended unhappily.

Asked about his fingerprints on Louise’s phone, Mays said: ‘Sometimes I would use the phone before Louise had the phone, or a couple of times I’ve taken the phone away from Louise.’

Andrew Langdon QC, defending, asked: ‘Why did you take the phone away from her?’

‘Because misbehaving,’ Mays said. ‘Not for very long.’

Asked who it was that he was seen picking up something from in a car outside Ringwood House on May 8, Mays said it was his wife’s mother’s husband, who gave him ‘baccy and bingo tickets’ for CJ.

Mays, a middle sibling among five sisters, confirmed he walked his mother’s chihuahuas at Havant Thicket as a child, and went camping there in the woods ‘about three or four times,’ he said.

He confirmed he has been married to CJ for five years, he went to Park Community School and cannot remember his exam results.

Mays said he had a job as a mechanic, and later tarmacking but has not had a job since he was 24. He was living off £50 a fortnight from his wife CJ, he said.

He said he played Xbox for ‘nine hours per day,’ on the games Call of Duty, Need for Speed and Fortnite ‘every day’ and would wake up between 11-12pm on an average day with CJ. But he said he doesn’t use a mobile phone much as he ‘can’t get on with phones’.

He ‘no longer used’ his Facebook profile but his wife ‘would keep track of what was going on on my Facebook,’ he said.

Asked if he has ever taken drugs, he had taken ‘ecstasy, cocaine, cannabis’ and legal highs but stopped as his wife disapproved.

He said he has taken drugs twice in his marriage, and his wife ‘didn’t agree with me doing it’.

Asked about a reprimand for assault aged 14, he said: ‘I assaulted another boy for picking on a disabled kid.’

In relation to a theft caution when he was 18, he said: ‘I bought a stolen push bike online, I didn’t know it was stolen’.

Mays said he took on his wife’s surname, changing his from Rawlinson as CJ ‘didn’t want my surname’. He lived in Montague Road, North End, before moving to Ringwood House, in Somborne Drive, Leigh Park about two years ago.

(Proceeding)

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