A whisky seller on trial for hitting a Miss Universe finalist 30 times argues that it's 'impossible' because there were no marks on his hands.
Ricky Lawrence, 32, is also said to have bitten ex-girlfriend Chloe Othen, 33, and pulled her hair during an hour-long frenzy in the early hours of October 15, 2022.
Ms Othen, an Instagram influencer with 305,000 followers, said she feared she would die after Lawrence threatened to slit her throat at his £1.5m Knightsbridge apartment.
They had been in an ‘on and off’ relationship from December 2021 to May 2022. London it was ‘nothing but trouble for six months’.
But he said they would bump into each other every fortnight or so as they moved in similar social circles and slept together several times in the following months to October that year, including while she was in a relationship with Bora Guccuk.
Defending Lawrence, Tony Wyatt, asked: ‘We’ve heard the relationship being described as toxic – would you agree?’
Lawrence said: ‘Oh yes, absolutely.’
Mr Wyatt asked him: ‘Looking back did you even like each other?’
Lawrence replied: ‘Looking back at it, no, it was nothing but trouble in that space of six months of my life.’
He said they swapped messages between around midday and 2.30pm on October 14 before arranging to meet at 5.30pm that evening.
Ms Othen cancelled, and Lawrence next heard from her at about midnight, he said, after which they then spoke every half an hour until the early hours of October 15.
The jury was then shown WhatsApp messages exchanged between Lawrence and Ms Othen on October 15 from 04.17am onwards.
These included messages from Lawrence which said 'You messed up tonight. Watch what I do now you silly c***”, and “I’ll do anything in my power to mess up the rest of your life. Screenshot that.’
Lawrence told the court the messages were ‘terrible’ and he was ‘not proud of that’.
Asked by Mr Wyatt why he wrote them, he said: ‘When you’ve had the last couple of months I’d had … there comes a point when your language becomes more colourful than it might usually be.’
Referencing the ‘Screenshot that’ part of one message, Lawrence said: ‘She used to delete messages so I couldn’t forward them to somebody else.’
Lawrence said he was going to tell Mr Gaccuk that he and Ms Othen were having an affair.
He told the court he woke up at about 5.45am and answered the door to Ms Othen straight afterwards.
Asked about Ms Othen’s condition at that time, Lawrence said she was ‘clearly very, very drunk, or on something else’ and was ‘slurring’.
Lawrence stated that he picked up Ms Othen's phone from the coffee table and answered it when he saw Mr Guccuk calling to inform him that she was at his house.
He asserted that Ms Othen became panicked and claimed that she was kidnapped while he was still on the phone, and he placed the phone back on the table after the short call ended.
Lawrence stated that after having a repetitive conversation with Ms Othen, he picked her up and held her in a nurturing manner and escorted her to the front door, asking her to leave once again.
Ms Othen returned to the flat but eventually left on her own, according to Lawrence, and he heard nothing else until around 12.30pm when police arrived at the property.
Mr Wyatt inquired: 'Ms Othen mentioned that you bit her, is that true?'
He then stated: 'She has now told us during her testimony that you actually punched her in the face that evening and caused her nose to bleed, and that's why she left.'
Lawrence responded, 'Absolutely not', to both statements.
He denies the charge of assault causing actual bodily harm and the trial is ongoing.
.
