A father accused of stabbing his 14-year-old daughter during a “play-fight” has told a court it was a “freak accident” – claiming he accidentally threw a knife at her without realising.
Simon Vickers, 50, denies both the murder and manslaughter of his only child Scarlett in the kitchen of their home in Darlington on 5 July last year.
Teesside Crown Court has heard Scarlett died after being stabbed through the heart.
Prosecutors said the 11cm wound was too deep to have been caused accidentally, and the knife must have been “held firmly” at the time.
On Monday, Vickers told his trial he swiped some tongs towards Scarlett while they were “mucking about” and had no idea there was a knife next to them until he saw blood gushing from her pyjama top.
Vickers said he must have swiped the knife at the same time as the tongs, telling the court: “This could only ever have been a freak accident.”
When questioned by his barrister Nicholas Lumley KC, Vickers said he accepted causing Scarlett’s death but when asked if he intended to cause her any harm, the defendant replied: “No, none whatsoever.”
Vickers said on that day he and Scarlett’s mother Sarah Hall had watched a football match on the television, and he had drunk three to four glasses of wine and smoked a cannabis joint.
He said Scarlett “started eating some grapes” as she was still hungry, before “we all started throwing grapes around for a bit, just mucking about”.
He told the court how “Sarah started grabbing me on the back with a pair of tongs” and caught his little finger in them.
He added Scarlett was “pushing me in the direction of where the tongs were”.
“I put my hand on top of the tongs and swiped them along the kitchen worktop,” Vickers said.
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‘We were mucking about, it was harmless fun’
The defendant said he had not seen a knife on the worktop, and did not know Scarlett had been hurt until she shouted: “Ow, ow, ow.”
He told jurors: “She had a pink fluffy pyjama top on. All of a sudden blood just started coming out of it. Loads of it.”
Asked again if he intended to harm Scarlett, Vickers said: “No, never. Never in this world. I’d have given my life.
“I had just thrown a pair of tongs as far as I was aware. We were mucking about, it was harmless fun … There was no knife in any equation whatsoever apart from Sarah will have been using it to cut onions at the start of the tea.
“I now know she had got a knife out and put it next to this hot plate to cut the garlic bread about a minute before this happened.”
The trial continues.
