THE MUM OF EIGHT accused with her partner of murdering David Petch has told jurors she did not want to harm the 55-year-old.
Cherri Gilmartin gave evidence at the Old Bailey this morning, occasionally breaking into tears as she told her version of the events of April 14 last year.
The 37-year-old and her partner Jason Lodge, 39, had gone to see Mr Petch in his flat in Wayside, Fieldway, to tell him to stop dealing cocaine to her sister.
Prosecutors claim the couple, who lived together in Uvedale Crescent in New Addington, then beat Mr Petch to death on the doorstep.
The couple both deny murder, claiming Mr Petch first hit Lodge with a baseball bat and they defended themselves.
Wearing a dark trouser suit, Gilmartin refuted the prosecutor's suggestion that violence was "inevitable" given her mood, even if she had not set out to kill.
She added: "I did not want that man to get hurt - I did not want that man to get injured or dead.
"I am going to live with that every day. It has not only destroyed his family but mine, too."
Moments earlier she also denied seeing Lodge, her partner of 20 years and father of her children, stamp on Mr Petch's head, as is alleged.
She said: "If I had seen that, I would be telling Jason he had better do the right thing for me and my children."
She later added: "If I had done [guilty], I would have gone guilty on this a long time ago and would be doing my time - for the sake of my kids more than anybody; they could be settling somewhere."
Yesterday she admitted for the first time "prodding" Mr Petch with the baseball bat, jurors were reminded this morning.
She said this morning: "It was to edge him away - I just wanted to go, for the violence to stop."
In her police interview on arrest, she had denied using the bat against Mr Petch at all. This morning she put that denial down to "panic."
Jurors had previously heard how the baseball bat was kept at home by Mr Petch, who Gilmartin has said was a "well-known" drug dealer in New Addington.
Gilmartin says Mr Petch got the bat from upstairs and used it to attack Lodge as he returned from smoking a cigarette outside.
She said this morning: "He [Petch] was on about the first or second stair and Jason has walked in and been hit round the head with a bat.
"Jason's gone sideways obviously knocked to the head and David Petch tried to hit him again over the shoulders.
"[It] was happening so fast and I was quite shocked that [it] had just happened for no reason."
Gilmartin also said she and Lodge did not know how badly injured Mr Petch was until the next morning when word of the incident started to spread around the estate.
She said they were then warned of reprisal threats and took their children to stay with a friend in Rye, East Sussex. She and Lodge then went to Croydon police station on April 17.
Father of nine Mr Petch died on April 18, his condition having rapidly gone downhill after he was taken by ambulance to hospital on the night of the incident.
The trial continues.
