Student accused of murdering fiance with her car tells court of ‘nightmare’

Alice Wood, 23, drove 158 metres with her fiance Ryan Watson underneath her Ford Fiesta.

Alice Wood leaves Chester Crown Court during her trial (Peter Byrne/PA) (PA Wire)

A philosophy student accused of murdering her fiance has cried in court as she described “stepping into a nightmare” when she realised he was under her car.

Alice Wood, 23, is accused of using her Ford Fiesta “as a weapon” and running over Ryan Watson, 24, near their home in Rode Heath, Cheshire, after they had been to a party on May 6 last year.

The court has heard she drove 158 metres with Mr Watson underneath the car.

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

Alice Wood

Giving evidence at Chester Crown Court on Monday, Wood said that on the night of his death, she and Mr Watson had been at a party with staff and service users of the brain injury charity Headway, where he was a support worker.

Wood said she drove Mr Watson’s Fiat Punto home from the party, despite knowing she was over the drink-drive limit, and when they got into the car his attitude towards her “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.”

Wood said when they returned to their home on Oak Street, she wanted to call her father to pick her up but could not find her phone.

She said she repeatedly asked Mr Watson if she could use his phone to call her father and at one point, when they were back in their house, he “erupted” towards her, grabbing her by her hair extensions and leaning her over the oven hob while holding the ignition switch and saying: “Ask me one more f****** time.”

Wood said she went to her car to leave and described an argument between her and Mr Watson while she was in the driver’s seat and he was outside the car.

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

Alice Wood

She 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’.”

In tears, she told the court Mr Watson had threatened to send someone to have her mother “knifed up”.

She said she reversed out of the car park she had been in, hitting Mr Watson’s car as well as a bin and bollard, and onto Sandbach Road.

Wood told the court after she reversed she decided to “swerve” her car towards Mr Watson and stop just 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.”

She described seeing Mr Watson hit the windscreen, which she said “shocked” her but said she then saw him back on his feet.

It was like stepping into a nightmare because I could see Ryan underneath the car

Alice Wood

Wood said she reversed again before driving down Sandbach Road.

She said she did not see Mr Watson in front of her car at that time, although she now accepted he was knocked down and his body went under the car.

Wood told the court her car felt as if it was not accelerating properly so after travelling a short distance down the road she stopped and got out of 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.”

I was just heartbroken

Alice Wood

Wood said she accepted causing Mr Watson’s death but said she did not do it deliberately.

She agreed she went to see medical professionals after his death because she was “struggling”.

She added: “I was just heartbroken.”

Cross-examining Wood about her account that Mr Watson had accused her of flirting at the party, Andrew Ford KC, prosecuting, said: “Is the truth not the other way round, that you became unhappy with his behaviour?”

She replied: “That’s not true.”

When Mr Ford suggested Wood had lost her temper, she said: “I hadn’t lost my temper. I didn’t want to hurt Ryan.”

She said she and Mr Watson began a relationship in March 2020 and became engaged in September that year, buying a house together in October 2021.

In May last year, she was preparing for final exams in a theology, philosophy and ethics degree and had been awarded a scholarship for a research masters, she said.

Wood denies murder and an alternative count of manslaughter.

The trial was adjourned to Tuesday.