Copyright walesonline
It was a Friday night and the family had gathered to celebrate Susan O'Donovan's 70th birthday, with her daughter Susanne Lewzey playing host. She put on a hot and cold buffet from Costco, with the drinks flowing and Barry White, one of her mum's favourites, playing on the Bluetooth speaker. In the kitchen, Susan's son Martin was arm in arm with his niece, dancing and telling her how much he loved her. He was making a rare visit home to Merseyside for his mum's special day, and was meeting his sister's boyfriend of 19 months, Stephen Bates, for the first time. Very quickly, the two men were getting on famously, as if they had known one another for a lifetime, bonding over glasses of vodka and Red Bull and downing Jagerbombs. Fellow partygoers went so far as to remark that the two had struck up a "bromance" with one another. Don’t miss a court report by signing up to our crime newsletter here . Stephen was seemingly the latest in a long line of people to instantly become enamoured with the easy charms of the man who, during an earlier spell when he was resident in north Wales, affectionately became known to locals in the pubs of Flintshire as "Scouse Martin". A lover of the outdoors and long walks up mountains, he was truly at home amongst the rugged terrain and in a community which he quickly found himself at the heart of. The landlord of the Royal Oak in Caerwys, Flintshire, remembered: "I can see him now, strolling through the door, that familiar cheeky grin spreading across his face. You always knew when Martin was truly engaged in a conversation. He'd grab your arm, maybe tug on your sleeve or the hem of your shirt, his eyes alight as he passionately made a point or launched into one of his legendary stories about his wild past. "He had a way of drawing you in, of making you feel the urgency and the humour of whatever he was sharing. He wasn't just someone who frequented the pub, he was woven into the fabric of this place." No doubt having been similarly regaled by Martin, back in the thick of the party, Bates turned to his girlfriend and told her: "I love your brother. He's great." It was almost inconceivable that, within a matter of hours, the two men would be trading punches in the front garden. The prospect that, a short time later, the festivities would be shattered by a fatal car crash were, frankly, unthinkable. And yet, on the night that his mother celebrated her milestone birthday, Martin lay critically injured outside in the road after a "seething" Bates deliberately rammed his Ford Fiesta at him and ran him over. In the early hours of the following morning, he would be pronounced dead in hospital. He was aged only 47. Later that year, on what would have been Martin's 48th birthday, his family and friends gathered in the public gallery of courtroom 31 at Liverpool Crown Court as Bates went on trial accused of his murder. Having been drinking since mid-afternoon, by around 10pm on April 18 this year, Bates was the worse for wear. This was the first time he had met many of Susanne's family members, with the spirits and Stella Artois perhaps intended as a tonic to settle the nerves. While Bates hadn't yet caused a scene at the party, he was seemingly on the way to becoming a nuisance. Hoping to keep the peace during what was, after all, her mum's birthday party, his partner quietly took him to one side in the living room and gently suggested that he might want to slow down and sober up with a glass of water. But Bates, a project worker with the homeless and vulnerable at the Whitechapel Centre in Everton, took offence. Susanne would later tell detectives: "I've never seen him that drunk. If we go out, we have two or three. I've never seen him bladdered or heavily drunk before, but he was. He was very drunk. "I thought, he's starting to get on people's nerves. I didn't want to make a fuss. I said, 'come and sit in the living room, have a sit down for 10 minutes'. I said 'nobody's complaining, but you've had a lot to drink babe, you need to have a little chill and have some water for a bit'. "He said, 'do you want me to go home then, I'm a k***head?'. He started to get in a mood. That snowballed then. I said, I don't want you to go home, there's no problem. You've had a lot to drink. It's my mum's birthday party, and I want to enjoy it. You can either have a sit down and chill or I'll order you a taxi. He said 'I'll go, I'm walking'." At the time, Bates had been living with his mum on Herondale Road in Mossley Hill, well over an hour's walk away, even on sober legs. Susanne took pity on him and ordered him an Uber, but he refused to get into the taxi and instead insisted on driving himself home. Understandably concerned, Susanne stopped him from getting in his car, telling him: "I love you. You're going to kill yourself or someone else. You're not getting in this car, end of." But Bates was still not to be dissuaded. As such, Susanne enlisted his new best mate. And, initially, Martin seemed to have worked his magic. She recalled: "They were just sitting there talking, calm. Everything was calm. I don't know how long later it was, they came together into the hall, the front door, my brother first then Stephen. I don't know what got said. It went from being calm to them fighting. They were literally just battering each other in the garden. I was like, what the hell? I didn't understand what had happened." Ring doorbell camera footage from the semi-detached home showed the two men throwing punches at one another beside Susanne's car on the driveway before they went to the ground, continuing to wrestle and grapple before being separated. Even then, Bates continued to hurl abuse: "Look at you. You're a f***ing pussy. You're a c***. You're all c***s. I'm getting my car, no one's f***ing telling me. This is not gonna be the same again after this. All your family are c***s." This time, another of Martin's sisters, Natalie O'Donovan, stepped in and offered to drive Bates home in his own car in order to put a stop to the madness once and for all. Ultimately, he agreed. Susanne said: "I was just fuming that they'd been fighting. It was my mum's birthday. I'm livid. This was supposed to be a nice party. "My brother came up and said, 'I'm so sorry we ended up fighting, but I can't be having him threatening my sister, he's out of order'. I was like, 'I'm not even mad at you, I appreciate what you've done, but it's just not on, I don't want that here'. He was like, 'I love you and I'll protect you'. I said there won't be an issue, because he's not coming back, I don't want to speak to him ever again. That was that, I thought." It took Natalie 12 minutes to make the drive across south Liverpool from Woolton to Mossley Hill, but the atmosphere in the 58-plate Fiesta was tetchy. Bates, still reeling from the fight, furiously ranted to her: "I'm gonna kill your brother. Do you think he's gonna get away with that, punching me? I'm gonna pay someone to come and get your brother. He's getting it." Natalie said of her passenger: "As soon as he got in the car, literally for the whole car journey, all he done was threaten to kill my brother. 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, '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. "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 [the threats] 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." Curiously, Bates misdirected Natalie to Barndale Road, the street next to where he lived, where the two pulled over. Having seemingly "calmed down to an extent", and believing that he was now home, she handed him his car keys and waited for a taxi to take her back to the party. Within moments, Bates sped off in the car. Obviously concerned, Natalie warned Susanne in a phone call but, in the space of just five minutes, he had already returned to Stonyhurst Road. Bates arrived just as she stepped outside of her front door, where Martin was sitting alone on the garden wall, drinking from a pint glass. On the other end of the line, Natalie heard a "heart wrenching scream". Susanne said: "I was just about to say to him, 'Martin, he's got in his car'. I literally just opened it, and his car appeared. His car just appeared. It went right into the wall. "Within a split second, my brother had jumped up. He basically jumped off the wall, because he'd seen the car, and ran to dodge the car. He went to hit him, stopped, turned and just ran him straight full over, and I mean, like full blast. I went ballistic. I could see my brother face down under his car. He was still revving it, trying to carry on. I thought, he's going to run over him again with the back wheels. "I was just banging on the driver's window like, 'stop, stop'. He was just like, nothing. I was terrified. I opened the driver's door and started hitting him, saying 'stop, stop, he's under the car'. I grabbed the keys out of the ignition. He just looked at me and got out the car. I don't know where he went. I never seen him again. "From that point, all I could see was my brother face down under the car. I rang an ambulance straight away. My cousins and uncles came out and lifted the car. He was in a terrible state. The blood was everywhere. "There was loads of commotion in the street. Everyone was hysterical. Then the paramedics came. There was loads of police. I could just tell straight away that he was almost dead, basically. They were working on him for ages." Natalie meanwhile returned in an Uber, saying of the journey: "I was saying to the taxi driver, 'please can you hurry up, something's happened'. It maybe took approximately 10 minutes, tops. I just ran out the taxi. "In that instant, I realised. I looked straight forward. 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?'. "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." Paramedics would arrive to a scene of "panic and anger" on Stonyhurst Road, but quickly set to work in an effort to save a critically ill Martin's life. He suffered two cardiac arrests even before he was taken to hospital. Ultimately, the extensive injuries he suffered to his head, chest and abdomen were too great. He was declared dead at 4.32am on April 19 2025. Seven minutes after the collision, at 11.47pm, Bates would dial 999 himself. He told the call handler: "I've ran somebody over. I don't know whether they're f***ing dead or alive. You need an ambulance or something. I think they're dead. They're not breathing, I don't think. "We had an argument, and then I've ran him over. You need to send someone quick. I'm staying here. I've done the crime, and I've... I'll f***ing... He's on the floor. I don't know. You need to send someone quick." Footage from the body worn cameras of officers who attended the incident then showed Bates being handcuffed while standing on the pavement using his phone as he said: "I know, I know. It's alright. I'm not going." Having been placed in an unmarked police vehicle, he was heard to add as he was cautioned: "Yeah, I know what you're gonna say. It's alright kid. Don't f***ing... Yeah, I know. Tell me. I know. I've done f***ing nothing wrong here. Alright. Go 'ed. Do it." Bates was subsequently told that he would be required to take a roadside breath test, at which stage he said: "Just breathalyse me. It doesn't matter. Just breathalyse me. I know what I've done, and what I've done is wrong. I know. F***ing f***ed up, and that's it. I'm over the limit, that's it." But Bates then appeared to refuse to comply with the test, saying: "Do it at the station. I don't want to do it now. Just do it at the station. I'm f***ed anyway. Just do it at the station. I'm not refusing." However, Bates did ultimately comply with this test and gave an initial reading of 99 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath, nearly three times over the limit. Further footage apparently showed him in distress in the rear of a police van as he was being transported to Belle Vale Police Station. Pictured wearing a navy blue G-Star Raw gilet over a beige jumper, he told PCs: "I'm terrified. I'm terrified. I know I'm going to prison. I know, I know I'm going to prison. I'm f***ing s***ting myself. It's f***ing terrifying. I f***ed up." Having taken further breathalyser tests once in custody, Bates went on to moan: "F***ing ruined my life, haven't I? My life's ruined." While an officer moved to reassure him, "we don't know yet, do we?", Bates held his head in his hands as he went on to say: "No, it is. My whole life is ruined. F***ing hell, my life has gone. What the f***. What the f***. My whole life is f***ing ruined." Six months on, in the witness box at the Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts, Bates' bravado had long since dissipated. Wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and a navy blue tie, he appeared sheepish, with his head almost permanently bowed and rarely much more than monosyllabic as he gave his evidence to the jury of three men and nine women. Under questioning from Andrew Haslam KC, Bates suggested that he had returned to Stonyhurst road to "try to sort his relationship out" and claimed that he had not seen Martin on the wall before he drunkenly crashed into him while attempting to park up outside. Asked when he first realised he had struck his girlfriend's brother, he appeared to become emotional as he responded: "When I got out the car and I saw his legs under the car. Just total shock." In cross-examination, John Benson KC, prosecuting, put to him that he had seen Martin sitting on the wall and deliberately driven his car at him. But Bates replied: "No, I didn't. I didn't. That's alls I can say, that I didn't see him." Asked whether the "red mist had descended on him", he said "there was no red mist to descend". When Mr Benson alleged that he "had a fit of extreme anger that temporarily clouded his judgement", he added: "No, I didn't." The prosecution went on to point out that Bates had been able to make the roughly three-mile journey from Barndale Road without incident, in spite of his drunken state, before crashing. But he maintained: "I don't know what state I was in. It's a journey that I do all the time. It would have just been autopilot. "I don't know where he was, so I didn't see him. Why would I know where he was? I didn't see him. I went back to see Susanne." Bates went on to describe Martin as "just a good lad" and said of the fight between them: "It was a drunken brawl. I don't know what the reason was, why we started fighting. I think he hit me first outside, from the camera footage." Referencing the threats on the drive home, Mr Benson said: "You were obsessed, seething about what Martin O'Donovan had done to you, weren't you? He punched you in front of his family and all of the other guests. And you were going to have none of that, were you?" But Bates replied "it was just a fight, it was just a fight". He went on to deny "feeling belittled" following the altercation before Mr Benson said: "You were in a state of heightened anger and excitement about what had happened, and you didn't let it lie. As soon as you managed to get the car keys, you got into the driver's seat and you sped off. "What's more, you continued at a fast pace to get to Stonyhurst Road, such that Susanne Lewzey couldn't believe the time it had taken you to come back to her home. Why were you going so quickly? What did you think you were going to be gaining? Susanne Lewzey wasn't going to leave the house. What was the huge urgency?" Bates responded: "I just wanted to sort things out between me and Susanne. I wanted to sort things out with my girlfriend." But Mr Benson continued: "You knew full well that the situation was beyond being sorted out. Did you say to Natalie at any stage before you left, 'tell Susanne I'm really sorry, can we speak tomorrow?'." Bates replied "I can't remember" and, when asked why he "didn't ring her himself", meekly added "don't know". Mr Benson then said: "I suggest that, if you genuinely wanted to patch things up with Susanne, and that was the reason for you going to her home, you would have made a call, or, at the very least, sent her a WhatsApp. 'I'm so sorry, I really love you, it won't happen again'. "But you didn't, did you? That is because you had no intention of going back to speak to Susanne. You intended to go back to finish the business, didn't you?" But Bates said "no, I didn't". He then remained silent and shook his head when Mr Benson added: "And so your case is that this was a completely unintended collision with Martin O'Donovan, which has made you feel horrible because he has died." Mr Benson went on to highlight a telling section of Bates' 999 call, namely when he told the call handler "we had an argument, and then I've ran him over". The KC said of this: "When you made that 999 call, the punch up with Martin O'Donovan, it was history, wasn't it? You've drawn a line under it. No interest any further. "Why did you think the operator would want to know you'd had an argument? What possible relevance could it be? In your mind, the two were connected. At the time, you were associating having run him over with the argument. "Because, if you're right, the argument had nothing whatsoever to do with it. You've moved on, you're not angry. You've had an accident. You could have said what happened, 'I was trying to park my car and I've accidentally run him over'. Why did you say, 'we've had an argument then I've run him over'?" Bates responded: "I don't know why I've said it. I was in shock. I don't know. I was in shock and drunk." Stephen Bates was found guilty of the murder of Martin O'Donovan on Monday this week following a two-week trial, with jurors returning their verdict by a majority of 10 to two after 13 hours and 17 minutes of deliberations. Cries of "yes" were heard in the public gallery, while the defendant, wearing a white long sleeved shirt and navy blue tie, stood with his head bowed in the dock as some of his supporters seen in tears. Judge Neil Flewitt KC, who presided over the case, told him: "As I am sure that you appreciate, the only sentence I can, by law, pass upon you is a sentence of imprisonment for life. I have to determine the minimum term you will have to serve before you can be considered for release on parole." Bates will now be brought back before the same court later this month in order to be sentenced for what was a truly senseless killing. In a drunken and petulant act of rage, having lost face in the scrap and been confronted with the impending end of his relationship, he brought what should have been a happy family occasion to a devastating end. Martin had "lived his life by the motto, 'keep smiling'". But his family have now been deprived of a man who his killer must have come to appreciate, even in the short time he had known him, had the rare gift of being able to "light up any room with his humour and presence". In stark contrast was Natalie's impression of Bates: "He was like a spoiled brat. He was like a child. [Susanne] didn't know whether it was gonna get anywhere, basically, the relationship. He's very reliant on his mum. 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." Remembering Martin, she added: "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. "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."
