A MURDER-ACCUSED told a court her boyfriend stabbed a debt collector but now claims he was not acting in self-defence.

Rachael Horton, 19, changed her account when she gave evidence against former fiancé Scott Davidson, 23.

Both deny murdering Martin Ithell, 49, from Boughton, Chester, at the house they had shared in Hawthorne Road, Frodsham, on the evening of Friday, March 11, over an unpaid debt.

Davidson, a doorman, admits shooting Mr Ithell but by accident when acting in self-defence. He claims Horton then knifed him.

But Horton, who had initially admitted stabbing the deceased at the scene, says Davidson both shot and stabbed the deceased and now claims the knifing was not in self-defence.

Horton, who worked in telesales for a Deeside bed company, recalled opening the door to Mr Ithell saying she was going shopping by arrangement to allow the two men to talk about a debt repayment plan.

But she returned moments later, having forgotten her purse, to discover the pair having ‘a heated discussion’ and ‘pushing and shoving’ near the entrance to their lounge.

Horton said: “I screamed. I threw my bag. It hit the wall between the stairs and the shoe box and I ran into the kitchen.”

She put her back against the closed kitchen door from where she could hear ‘shouting and scuffling’.

Horton added: “There was a bang on the door and the shouting had stopped. Then there was the loud bang of the shot gun.”

Horton recognised the sound of a gunshot from a short spell in the Army and believed her boyfriend had been shot, which was the point when she picked up a kitchen knife ‘to protect herself’.

She then heard another thud at the door which opened, she said, because Mr Ithell had fallen against the door frame.

“That’s when Scott had come to the kitchen door, took the knife off me and said words to the effect of ‘give us that’ or ‘give me the knife’,” she said.

“That’s the point I have seen Mr Davidson strike Mr Ithell with the knife.”

But Horton, who met Davidson while he worked as a doorman at Destiny and Elite nightclub in Cheshire Oaks where she was a barmaid, retracted a police statement in which she said Mr Ithell had still been angry and trying to get at Davidson when he used the knife.

Under cross-examination, she said: “I still agree I saw the knife in Scott’s hand but I don’t agree he was trying to defend himself.”

She regretted rinsing the knife under the tap and cleaning up the scene, which she said was done on impulse.

Under cross-examination, Horton admitted she had been prepared to commit armed robberies with Davidson in which she would act as a look-out and getaway driver.

She was also asked about her reference to the word ‘gutter’ in a text message the night before the incident.

The prosecution says this was reference to a kitchen knife and the role she would play in the plot to kill Mr Ithell.

Earlier Davidson said it referred to the machete she would carry as part of their plan to rob Hapsford service station, near Chester. But she claimed it was a reference to a lubricant the couple used when performing a sex act.

The trial continues.