A woman standing trial for killing of a man in an Aberdeen high-rise has declared to the jury: “I’m not a murderer!”
Elizabeth Sweeney, 36, is accused of murdering Neil Jolly by assaulting him and repeatedly striking him on the head and body with a kettle.
Sweeney – a confessed crack and heroin addict at the time – was acquitted of the allegation that she attempted to conceal the murder by cleaning the body of Mr Jolly, 49, in the bathroom at his flat in Marischal Court, Aberdeen before covering his body with a duvet.
She was additionally acquitted of attempting to destroy evidence by cleaning the kettle and of assaulting Mr Jolly between June 1 and June 26 2023.
Sweeney, also known as Lizzy, denies the charge of murder and has lodged a special defence of self-defence.
She claims that in the early hours of June 25 2023 to find Mr Jolly raping her in her sleep.
Giving evidence from the witness box in her own defence, Sweeney told advocate depute Erin Campbell that she was not a murderer and that Neil Jolly was alive when she saw him last.
“I’m not a murderer, I wouldn’t kill somebody,” she said.
“Why? For What? I didn’t wake up that day and say, I’m going to do this to Neil Jolly, did I?”
Ms Campbell put it to Sweeney that Mr Jolly had been captured on CCTV in the hours he was last seen alive with injuries to his face.
Sweeney claimed that she and Mr Jolly had fought in his flat after she had woken to find him trying to have sex with her and that they had fought for “about half an hour”.
“What did you do to him?” the advocate depute asked.
‘I didn’t batter him to death’
“I punched him and slapped him and pushed him back,” Sweeney replied, adding that during this Mr Jolly “fell and hit the coffee table and banged his head”.
Describing Sweeney’s answers as “very general”, Ms Campbell pressed her on what had happened during the fight.
“The thing is Ms Sweeney…” the advocate depute said.
“What’s the thing?” Sweeney replied.
“One of you is dead,” Ms Campbell said.
“Yes, I know that,” Sweeney said. “Do you think I wanted that to happen? I didn’t wake up that day and say I’m going to go to Neil Jolly’s to kill him. Why would I do that? Why?”
The advocate depute replied: “Well, just because you didn’t wake up and decide that you were going to murder someone doesn’t mean that you didn’t actually ultimately murder them, Ms Sweeney.”
Ms Campbell went on to suggest that Sweeney had “battered Neil Jolly to death with a kettle” during the fight she claimed they had.
“No, I didn’t batter him to death,” Sweeney replied.
The advocate depute then reminded Sweeney that she had told police when she met them on King Street and feared she had killed Mr Jolly that he was in the bathroom of his flat.
“Can I suggest to you that the reason you knew he was in the bathroom was because you had put him there and had put a duvet over him and had closed the door on him – that you knew he was laying there dead?”
“No,” Sweeney replied.
‘I think I said I killed him’
Sweeney was also quizzed by her defence solicitor, Ian Duguid KC, telling him that she got into a violent 30 to 40-minute fight with Mr Jolly after she woke up and found him sexually assaulting her.
She said that due to the amount of crack cocaine, heroin, alcohol and prescription medication she was on that she lost track of when he hit his head but that she ran from his flat.
Sweeney then called the police on June 26 2023 from a telephone box and was seen crying on the pavement by witness Ian Gray.
“Did you tell Ian Gray that you had murdered, Neil Jolly?” Mr Duguid asked her.
“I think I said that I had killed him,” Sweeney replied.
“That you’d killed him?” Mr Duguid repeated.
“I think so,” Sweeney said.
Mr Duguid pressed his client: “Did you know that you had killed him?”
“No, I didn’t know.”
The defence solicitor then asked Sweeney if she had gone back to Mr Jolly’s flat in order to clean up?”
“No, did it look clean?” Sweeney replied.
Mr Duguid then asked her if she had placed a duvet over Mr Jolly and closed the bathroom door?
“No, I never closed the bathroom door,” Sweeney replied.
The trial, before Judge Andrew Miller, continues.