Bassetlaw murder trial: Accused tells police she knew nothing about killing

In police interviews after her arrest which were read to the jury at Nottingham Crown Court, Angela Dowling, 48, of Windmill Avenue, Conisbrough said she had no idea 50-year-old Alan Easton was going to be stabbed and buried a few minutes later on Harwell Sluice Lane, near Everton, on the night of 1st February, 2013.

She described being ‘scared to death’ waiting in her car in darkness after Mr Easton got out of the vehicle with her lodger, Stephen Schofield, and another man, Matthew Duffy, who told police he was asleep in the car when the murder allegedly took place.

Dowling claims she had already broken off her brief engagement to Mr Easton because he was allegedly getting too close to a 13-year-old girl and she found out he possessed child porn.

“I hadn’t got a clue what they were going to do with him, I was on my own in the dark, I was scared for everybody.”

“They told me to stay in the car. I knew they were going to have a word, but I didn’t know what they were going to do. I just thought they were going to talk to him.”

“I don’t understand why they did it. If I’d known they’d got knives I wouldn’t have gone anywhere.”

“There’s no way in hell I would have wanted this to happen. I was just driving and doing what they told me.”

The jury have heard from the prosecution that the allegation Mr Easton acted inappropriately towards the teenager were untrue.

Dowling said she could not have walked far on the country track herself because she had been diagnosed with ME a few months earlier.

She admitted to police she was heavily in debt when Mr Easton came to live with her from Dumbartonshire in Scotland a few days before he was killed, and she still owed £4,000 for the funeral of her husband, who died from leukaemia a few weeks before.

The day after his death, Mr Easton’s clothes were recycled and his Xbox was sold by Duffy.

Dowling, Duffy, 23, of Sussex Street, Balby and Mark Bingham, 50, of Fishponds Road West, Sheffield have gone on trial accused of murder.

Stephen Schofield, 31, also of Windmill Avenue, Conisbrough has admitted murder.

The trial continues into next week.