Girl, 8, tells court of heartbreaking moment 'she watched stepfather murder her mother'

Simon Downer

wife Tracey

An eight-year-old girl has described the terrifying moment her stepfather plunged a knife into her mother's heart, a court heard.
The little girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told police she saw Simon Downer, 38, stab her mother Tracey, 40, in the living room of their home following a violent argument on June 20 last year.
In one of three police interviews played to jurors at Birmingham Crown Court, the girl said: 'I was sitting on the settee next to my mum and he (Downer) came in with the big knife and told me to move.

'I stood over by the door and he stabbed her in the heart on the left side. He said after "that's what happens if you push it with me".
'I just thought it was weird because he cared for her after.'
The court heard how the girl woke up in the night and heard the couple shouting at each other.
She said in the interview: 'I told them to stop it. My mum stopped it but Simon kept shouting at her and started again. He got fed up with it. Then he really went mad and was shouting at her, strangling her and hitting her.
'He threw a glass at the television then he threatened my mum not to move. He got a small knife and said "if you move this is going to go straight through your body".'
Jurors previously heard how the girl frantically called 999 three times saying her 'mummy' had been stabbed.
Police found Tracey slumped naked on the sofa with a towel covering her for 'modesty's sake'.
Downer, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, told police he could not remember anything from the time the family had returned home that night to his arrest. He denies murdering his wife.
He was sentenced to six years for wounding with intent to cause serious injury after stabbing an ex-girlfriend in the stomach in March 2005.
And he once angrily said to Tracey 'you are raring up - didn't you see what I did to the last one and now you are doing it as well,' the court heard.
Giving evidence via video link, the girl told the court she had met Downer while he was still in prison and visited him with her mother for a year prior to his release.
They married the day after he was released in April 2009 and were 'very happy together', the court heard.
Defending, Richard Latham QC said to the little girl: 'They were very, very happy together weren't they and they wanted to be together every minute of the day if they could be.'
She responded saying: 'Yes.'
The court heard Tracey was two weeks pregnant but had a miscarriage on the morning she was killed.
Mr Latham said: 'They were both really pleased she was pregnant. It was Simon who was ringing up trying to get advice from a doctor about what to do next.