A WOMAN has described how a teenage boy begged her for help after his father was shot outside her neighbour's house.
Susan Platten, a receptionist, had just got in from work and was in the garden with her 18-year-old son Macauley when she heard a disturbance at her neighbour's in Melton Old Road, Melton, on May 20.
Giving evidence at the trial of Peter Guy, 54, who denies murder, Mrs Platten said she initially heard a "metallic" scraping sound, which she thought was a skip being delivered.
She later learned this was the sound of a van being rammed into a garage.
The mother-of-four then heard raised voices and a gunshot and went with her son to investigate because she was worried about a woman who lived there.
Asked if she could remember the words of the argument, she told Hull Crown Court: "It was just like a quarrel, a bit hot and heated, a bit of swearing."
Asked if she could remember what it was about, she replied: "Money, I think."
Mrs Platten arrived at the property to see the woman walking down the drive, "upset, crying" and told her son to take care of her.
Mrs Platten said: "She says, 'He's shot him', so obviously that was the shot. She was hysterical, so it must have been true."
She said: "I made Macauley look after her and take her round the front out of the way so Macauley didn't come down the drive."
She then approached a truck with three men sitting in the cab – Jonathan Smith, 38, who had been fatally shot, his 15-year-old son sitting next to him, whom she referred to as "the young lad", and another man on the passenger seat.
She said the man in the passenger seat appeared to be shocked, was acting strangely, and was unsure what to do.
"He was just sort of getting in and out of the passenger side of the van," she said.
"Was it clear to you why he was doing that?" asked Timothy Roberts QC.
She replied: "I realised he must have just lost his head because of what had happened, or whether he didn't know what to do."
Mrs Platten then tried to help Mr Smith, who was in a sitting position.
"Can you tell us anything else about his posture?" Mr Roberts asked.
She replied: "It wasn't very good. He was unconscious."
Mr Roberts asked: "And what, if anything, was the young lad doing?"
Mrs Platten said: "Crying for me to help him."
"Saying what," asked the prosecutor.
She replied: "Help me, lady. He shot my dad."
Asked if the boy was doing anything, Mrs Platten said: "He was trying to keep his dad's head up, but he can't move away from him, he can't do anything."
Mr Roberts asked if anything was being done to stop the bleeding from Mr Smith's wounds.
Mrs Platten said: "I was telling him to go and get towels to pack in and to stop him being hysterical, because the older guy who was there was lost, he didn't know what to do."
While trying to help Mr Smith, Mrs Platten said she then told the boy to call a member of his family, and believes he got through to his uncle Jacob.
She said: "I had to take the phone off him because I was worried about the battery going flat and I said he had to come and come now."
Mrs Platten told the jury the boy was urging the other man to go into the house to seek revenge for his father being shot, but she told him not to and he obeyed.
"I just told him to stay where he was and not make it worse," she said.
She told the court she then noticed an "old, rusty knife" on the doorstep and stood on it so it could not be used as a weapon.
Mrs Platten went into the kitchen to wash the blood off her hands and said Mr Guy warned her not to go back out, "because they'll have you and slice you up".
"But I didn't get the impression anyone was going to hurt me," she said.
She saw armed police arrive and arrest Mr Guy, who was crying and "confused".
The jury earlier heard forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd give the cause of Mr Smith's death as gunshot wounds to the chest and leg.
The prosecution say Mr Smith was shot in the leg first to "incapacitate" him.
But William Harbage QC established that Dr Shepherd could not be certain of this.
Mr Harbage said: "Are you in a position where you can't say with any certainty what order they (the shots) came?"
"I would agree with that," Dr Shepherd replied.
The trial continues.
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