Student on trial over murdering fiance with car recounts 'stepping into a nightmare'
A student on trial for murder has described "stepping into a nightmare" when she realised her fiance was underneath her car.
Alice Wood, 23, has been accused of using her Ford Fiesta "as a weapon" and running over her fiance, 24-year-old Ryan Watson, near their home in Rode Heath, Cheshire after a party on 6 May last year.
A court has been told she drove 158 metres while Mr Watson was underneath the car.
Giving evidence at Chester Crown Court, Wood said she and Mr Watson had been at an event for staff and service users for the charity Headway, where he was a support worker.
She said she drove Mr Watson's Fiat Punto home, despite knowing she was over the drink-drive limit, adding when they got into the car, his attitude "flipped".
She said: "Straight away he was accusing me of flirting with other men at the party and he started calling me a slag, saying I'd embarrassed him and shown him up in front of everyone."
When they returned to their home on Oak Street, Wood said, she wanted to call her dad to pick her up but was unable to find her phone, adding she repeatedly asked Mr Watson if she could use his device, alleging he "erupted" towards her, grabbed her by her hair extensions and leant her over the hob while he held the ignition switch saying: "Ask me one more f****** time."
She said she went to her car to leave, adding the argument continued between her and Mr Watson while she was in the driver's seat and he was outside the car.
Wood told the jury: "I'd said for a final time 'Ryan, just go inside, just go to bed and I'll be back in the morning, I'm going to go to my mum's' and after that he said 'your mum's f****** dead'."
Crying, she added Mr Watson had threatened to send someone to have her mother "knifed up". She then said she reversed out the car park she had been in and hit Mr Watson's car, a bin, and a bollard, and onto Sandbach Road.
Wood said after she reversed, she decided to "swerve" her car towards her fiance, and stop short of him to "scare" him.
She said: "He'd scared me and I know that doesn't make it excusable but in my head at that time I just felt so frightened and I wanted him to feel like I did."
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Wood said she was "shocked" when she saw Mr Watson hit the windscreen, but then recalled seeing him back on his feet, adding she then reversed once more before driving down Sandbach Road.
She accepted he was knocked down and his body went under the car, but did say she did not see Mr Watson in front of her car at the time.
Wood told the court it felt like her car was not accelerating as it should, and after a short distance down the road she stopped and got out the car.
Crying, she said: "It was like stepping into a nightmare because I could see Ryan underneath the car.
"It was like I was in hell, It didn't seem real."
She accepted causing Mr Watson's death, but denied doing it deliberately, and agreed she saw medical professionals after his death because she was "struggling" and "heartbroken".
Wood said she got together with Mr Watson in March 2020, and became engaged in September that year, and bought a house with him in October 2021.
She added she had been awarded a scholarship for a research masters and had been studying for her final exams in theology, philosophy, and ethics.
Wood denies murder and an alternative count of manslaughter.
