A university student unwittingly ‘recorded her own murder’ while trying to capture her boyfriend’s ‘bad weed trip’ shortly before he killed her, a court heard.
Lauren Bloomer, 25, was stabbed more than 30 times by her 27-year-old partner Jake Notman in a horrific attack likened to ‘something out of the movie Scream’, jurors heard.
Deborah Gould, prosecuting, told Stafford Crown Court Ms Bloomer could be heard shouting for help as Notman lunged at her, at first with his bare hands and then using a knife, while snarling: ‘I will never f***ing see you again.’
It then captured him telling her ‘I am going to make sure’ as a car revved in the background before a thud could be heard, alleged to have been the sound of Notman’s Ford Kuga running her over.
Notman denies murdering Ms Bloomer at their home in Tamworth, Staffordshire, in the early hours of Friday November 20 last year.
He claims he did not form the necessary intent due to his mental state.
Jurors heard the couple were avid ‘gamers’ and decided to celebrate the release of the new PS5 console by taking weed brownies.
But Andrew Fisher QC, defending, said the night ‘went horrendously wrong’ when Notman suffered an ‘extreme florid psychiatric episode in the course of which he totally lost touch with reality and became wholly delusional’.
Ms Gould earlier told the court: ‘Something no doubt in the defendant’s behaviour prompted Lauren to start recording on that mobile phone.
‘The audio recorded Lauren’s screams and it recorded her calls for help.’
Describing the contents of the near 17-minute clip, she went on: ‘The audio captured the moments leading up to, including and after the murder.’
Jurors heard Notman became aggressive nine minutes into the recording, around a minute before Lauren is heard saying ‘please help me’ to his aunt in a call on a second phone.
The Crown’s barrister added: ‘You may think when you hear the sounds that the defendant is downstairs, the phone remaining upstairs.
‘At 10 minutes and 49 seconds in the recording, Lauren stops screaming. The defendant is then heard shouting “I will never f****** see you again”.’
Notman, the court heard, was then heard saying ‘I am going to make sure’, before the sound of a revving engine is heard.
A thud was then recorded by the victim’s phone, which Ms Gould said was the sound of Notman’s Ford Kuga being driven over Ms Bloomer.
Notman, who worked for Jaguar Land Rover at its Solihull site, was seen by neighbours as he ran over his partner’s body, and allegedly took no steps to help her before heading back into their house.
He is then said to have dialled 999 at 1.32am, telling the operator he had ‘been told I have killed my girlfriend’.
Notman, Ms Gould said, made no comment in five police interviews, instead providing a statement suggesting the cannabis brownie – the first he had ever consumed – had something in it other than cannabis.
After three psychiatrists had assessed Notman’s ‘disordered’ behaviour, Ms Gould told jurors it was believed he had suffered an adverse reaction.
But she told the jury: “It does not provide a defence in law. A disordered intention caused by self-induced ingestion of an intoxicant is as good as a sober intention.
“You can infer that the defendant intended to kill Lauren or cause her really serious injury from the fact that he beat her, tried to strangle her… and sought out a knife and used it to attack Lauren for a second time.
“You can infer it from what he said before he drove the car over her.”