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A man warned he would "pay someone to come and get" his girlfriend's brother, before he killed him by running him over, a court heard yesterday [Wednesday]. Martin O'Donovan, who previously lived in Flintshire , died aged 47 after being hit by Stephen Bates' Ford Fiesta, outside his sister's home on Stonyhurst Road in Woolton during his mum's 70th birthday party. The two were said to have "hit it off straight away", however they later became involved in a drunken punch up. That was due to the 42-year-old defendant apparently insisting on driving home, even though he had drank a cocktail of Jagerbombs, Stella Artois, Red Bull and vodka. He then allegedly issued a series of threats to kill the other man before returning to the scene in his car and "deliberately driving straight at him," reports the ECHO. Mr O'Donovan was left trapped beneath the chassis as a result, with his uncles and cousins having worked together in order to lift the vehicle up and free their relative. He later died in hospital after suffering serious head injuries during the incident. Bates, of Herondale Road in Mossley Hill, meanwhile went on to tell the police officers who arrested him "I know what I've done, I've f***ed up". He is currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of murder. Jurors heard evidence from another of Mr O'Donovan's sisters, Natalie O'Donovan, yesterday afternoon, Wednesday, first being played a video of a recorded interview which she gave to detectives the following day. In the footage, she said of the party: "I had some running round to do, I got my mum some gifts. I arrived at the property, I'd say, around 7pm. By that time, most people were already there. "The first thing I noticed was that Stephen was intoxicated. I didn't think anything of it. I laughed about it, like, 'God, he's drunk'. As soon as we got there, [her sister, Susanne Lewzey] said he'd been drinking all day. He'd been drinking for hours. She told me he'd been having shots with Martin. They'd been drinking for some hours." While Ms O'Donovan recalled that "everyone was having a nice night", she stated that she began to "feel uncomfortable" with Bates' behaviour around her teenage children. She added: "My sister took him into the living room, because it got too much. Nothing had been said. It was just a really calm, happy atmosphere. Nobody else was overly intoxicated. "My sister took him into the living room. They'd been gone for some time. I'd gone into the living room. They were sat there. He was being, not loud, but slightly aggressive in the way he was speaking to my sister. He was like, 'so what are you tryna say, I'm a f***ing d***head, no one likes me', that type of conversation. I turned around and said, 'you're not doing nothing wrong, pick yourself up'." Ms O'Donovan then left the room and returned to the kitchen before later noticing that Bates and O'Donovan were "on the floor, fighting". She said of this: "I ran out. Stephen was on top of my brother. I put my arm in between Stephen and him and tried to pull Stephen off. I was shouting, 'get him off'. They rolled over, and Martin was on top then. It was a little chaotic, people running out of the house." With the two men having been separated, Ms O'Donovan said of Bates: "He was refusing to go home. 'You can f*** off'. I think he was shouting threats to Martin. 'You f***ing p***y'. Those were his words. 'You're gonna get it'. I remember him laughing. "I was totally sober. He was trying to get into his car. My sister wouldn't give him his car keys, but he wouldn't leave. My bright idea, which has turned out now, I don't blame myself, but this chain of events is what's led to it. I turned around and said 'look, Stephen, you can't drive home like that, you'll kill yourself or someone else, I'll take you home in my car'. "He refused to get in my car. He was adamant to get in his own car. I said, 'I'll actually take you home in your own car and get a taxi'. I said 'come on Stephen, it's my mum's birthday, the kids are here'. He got in the car in the end. "As soon as he got in the car, literally for the whole car journey, all he done was threaten to kill my brother. 'I'm gonna kill your brother, do you think he's gonna get away with that, punching me?'. I said, 'Stephen, you've caused the whole thing, it's been a drunken fight, you need to go home and get some rest'. His words were, 'I'm gonna pay someone to come and get your brother'. "It was all these threats from Woolton village to Mossley Hill. I said, 'you've just caused a fight, I'm still sat here taking you home'. I said 'do me a favour, have a little respect for me, promise you won't go back there and cause any trouble, if you want to fight him, give him a call in a few days, have a one to one fight with him'. He was just like, 'he's getting it'. He would be in a verbal rage, then, when I looked into his eyes, he was calm for a minute." Having arrived in the area where Bates lived with his mum, Ms O'Donovan then took the key for her sister's house before handing him his car key, saying: "This is where I feel so guilty. I thought, he's outside his mum's. I calmed him down, to an extent. He looked like he was in thought. He wasn't ranting as much. "He was in the passenger seat still. I was stood outside. He'd obviously heard I'm on the phone and the taxi's coming. I just seen his arm come across the passenger seat and shut the door. I'd say, within 60 seconds, he'd sped off at high speed. He was gone, and I mean gone." Ms O'Donovan added of the phone call to her sister which she had been in the midst of at the time: "It was like he'd flown to my sister's house. She said the taxi's due in three minutes. Before my taxi got there, I just heard, I'll never forget the scream that come out of my sister's mouth. Then the phone went off. "Obviously, all my family were there. I was saying to the taxi driver, 'please can you hurry up, something's happened'. It maybe took approximately 10 minutes, tops. It could have been quicker. I just ran out the taxi, and there's Stephen, stood to the right of me on his phone. I just looked at him. "In that instant, I realised. I looked straight forward. My brother was just lay, basically gargling blood out his mouth, with Stephen's car, I think, to the left of Martin." Ms O'Donovan then became tearful as she continued: "Martin was in the middle of the road. You could see, he had blood everywhere. I knew straight away. I knew as soon as I seen him with the blood and everything. "I just remember running over to Stephen. I was like, 'what have you done?'. All I remember is the police taking Stephen and putting him in the back of the car. It was so long, when the ambulance then turned up, so long that they worked on Martin, so long. Martin was just a very calm person who didn't want to get involved in people's business. He came for my mum's birthday party." Ms O'Donovan meanwhile said of her sister's relationship with Bates: "My sister was unhappy. She loved him, but he was like a spoiled brat. He was like a child. She didn't know whether it was gonna get anywhere basically, the relationship. "She told me he suffers with mental health as well. He works at the Whitechapel Centre. I think he'd had bouts of stress. He's an only child as well. He's very reliant on his mum. He lives with his mum, but then he just stays with Susanne on occasions." Of Bates' appearance at the party, she added: "He was swaying. He was visibly drunk. Everyone was aware of the fact he was, that's why my sister took him into the living room, to try and calm him. Everyone was in high spirits, but not overly intoxicated. "We had Barry White on, the songs my mum likes. Martin was happy. He had his arm around my daughter, saying how much he loved her. I couldn't get a better brother. He wasn't a soft lad. He would defend his family. He's an old fashioned, old school person. He would never start a fight. He wasn't a bully. He didn't enjoy fighting. He'd only hit back if he needed to defend himself." Following the confrontation, Ms O'Donovan recalled: "Stephen was kind of on his tiptoes, like, 'do you think you're hard, you p***y?'. I can't remember the exact words. He was goading him to try and fight again. Martin was walking away and being pushed back into the house." Ms O'Donovan went on to say of the journey from Woolton to Mossley Hill: "One of the threats was, he was gonna pay someone to kill him. He just kept calling him a p***y. 'Does he think he's gonna get away with that?'. "I didn't know this man very well. What I get from him is, he thinks he's Mr Good Looking and Hard. The only thing I can take away from it is, he's felt belittled. From the minute I got in the car to the minute I got out, he was just constantly threatening. I felt a bit intimidated too. If I don't give him this key, he might kick off." Ms O'Donovan meanwhile said of the moment she learned of an incident having occurred via the phone call: "I'd only just got in the taxi. He must have drove so erratically to get there that quick. It was so quick. [It was] just a heart wrenching scream. "This bit just gets me. I was running. I thought it was Stephen [who was injured], because I didn't know what was going on. Then I seen Stephen. It was just plain face, zero emotion. That threw me. I thought something had happened to Stephen, then I see Stephen on his phone, totally plain faced. I looked and seen my brother in the worst state I've ever seen anyone. "I seen him getting put in the back of a police car. I seen him just totally plain faced. I shouted abuse at him, 'I'm gonna kill him', just heat of the moment, 'that's my brother'. [There was] just nothing. "I never thought that was gonna happen. I didn't think he was gonna go back. Maybe I thought he'd end up driving into a wall or something. I didn't think much. In the moment, I'm just trying to get home." Ms O'Donovan was then called to give evidence to the jury from the witness box. Under cross-examination from defence counsel Andrew Haslam KC, she was asked whether she had "taken the threats seriously", to which she replied: "I don't think anyone would ever take that they would literally do that. At that moment in time, I believed he was angry. I didn't take them seriously at the time. They were serious, but I didn't assume he was gonna do it. "If I was psychic, I would have kept the keys. I didn't think anyone in the family would have been capable of what he done. If he'd said 'I'm going to go and murder your brother with my car', of course I would have." Mr O'Donovan's sister, and Bates' then girlfriend, Susanne Lewzey was also called to give evidence to the jury yesterday (Wednesday). Addressing the court from behind a screen, she agreed under cross-examination from defence counsel Andrew Haslam KC that she "genuinely loved" her partner and that the "feeling was a reciprocal one". Ms Lewzey went on to recall there were "35 to 37" family members present during the party at her house and, when asked whether she was "keen that Bates made a good impression on her" extended family, said from the witness box: "It wasn't really a thought that went through my mind. [It was] not something I would consciously think. "I loved him, he was my partner. He'd already met my immediate family. There was no issue. It wasn't a thought process that went though my mind, at that point." Speaking about the moment the fight broke out, she said: "They didn't just fight out of the blue. My brother tried to resolve that situation, trying to stop him driving off for his own safety. They got on. The fight only broke out after that. "As they turned back into the house, my brother first, followed by Stephen, I asked a question, 'is he going home?', or 'what's happening?'. Stephen said something I didn't hear, at that point. That's what sparked them to start tussling. I can only tell you what I actually heard. "It all just happened in a flash. I asked a question, and then the next thing they were fighting. It was literally a split second. They were grappling with each other, then they ended up on the floor." Giving evidence about the car striking Mr O'Donovan, Ms Lewzey said: "The car wasn't out of control, it wasn't going really fast. It was going at quite a normal speed, but it mounted the kerb very deliberately, at an angle. It wasn't a manoeuvre you would do to park. "I physically saw my brother jump out of the way. He was off the wall, and he jumped out of the way. He wasn't pinned by the car at that point, he got up and physically jumped out of the way. He jumped clearly away from the car." She added: "Stephen's an idiot. I can't believe he's done that. He's crashed into my wall, but my brother's jumped out of the way." However, she then reported: "A split second later, the car went from that angle to the complete opposite angle, very fast, revved, very deliberate. I didn't see him get physically hit. I couldn't see where my brother was at that point. "All I could see was his legs underneath the car. That's when I came to the realisation he had been hit. I was in shock. I was thinking, he's under there, he's under there. Does he know he's still under the car?" Bates denies the count of murder, having pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. The trial, before Judge Neil Flewitt KC, continues. You can sign up for all the latest court stories here Find crime figures for your area
