4:52pm Monday 16th June 2008
By Daniel Knowles
A teen accused of stabbing schoolgirl Sian Simpson to death during a squabble over a man says she acted in self defence.
The Old Bailey was told today that Chelsea Bennett claims she stabbed the 17-year-old once in the chest trying to protect herself during a fight.
Brian Altman, prosecuting, told the jury the 19-year-old said it was the Carshalton College student who had bought the weapon to the row.
The court heard a fight had broken out over Nathan Davidson who had fathered a child with Chantelle Campbell - a woman Ms Simpson regarded as a cousin.
Mr Davidson and Ms Campbell had split up but met on June 19 last year at his mum's house to talk about him visiting his baby.
Mr Davidson's current girlfriend, Danielle Cooke - who was pregnant at the time - had become jealous when she discovered he was with Ms Campbell.
Ms Cooke and Bennett decided to go to Mr Davidson's mum's home in Mann Close, Scarbrook Road, where they began shouting outside the flat, explained Mr Altman.
Mr Davidson managed to convince the pair to leave, while Ms Campbell, who was inside the flat, contacted her friends, the jury was told.
One of those friends was Ms Simpson who arrived at around the same time that Ms Cooke and Bennett decided to return to Mann Close.
The court heard a heated argument broke out between the two groups of girls at around 7.50pm.
Mr Altman said: "As you will hear, her death by stabbing was the culmination of an afternoon and evening of an escalating fight between two groups of young females.
"All apparently over the attentions of a young man, where you will hear the resort was made in the all too depressing and familiar use of a knife to settle a score with one fatal outcome, the death of Sian Simpson."
Mr Altman told the court that Bennett claimed she had disarmed Ms Simpson and grabbed the knife from floor.
Officers arrived at the scene to find Ms Simpson lying at the front of a car on her right hand side in a puddle of water.
She was taken to Mayday Hospital but pronounced dead at 8.43pm.
Bennett, formerly of Gilroy Court Hotel, London Road, denies murder.
The trial continues.
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