THE mother of a Whitehaven man who died from internal bleeding said he told her of being punched in the ribs by the man now accused of his manslaughter.

Marc Wright, 39, died on March 28, 2021, six days after the alleged incident at his home in Crummock Avenue, Whitehaven, a jury at Carlisle Crown Court heard. Lewis Connor Knight, 29, denies manslaughter.

The court has heard that Knight, of Beach Road, St Bees,- had arrived at Mr Wright’s home on March 22 demanding repayment of a £100 debt.

Mr Wright’s mother Janice Wright said that during a phone call to her son that day she overheard the defendant threaten to “batter” Marc if the money was not paid. She therefore settled the debt that same day.

The following day, she said, her son had told her he had sore ribs because Lewis Knight had punched him. He died six days later, on March 28.

The prosecution say that medical evidence supports Mrs Wright’s version of events, pointing to the conclusion that that fractured rib that ruptured his spleen, causing the fatal bleeding, was likely to have been sustained four to seven days earlier.

In her evidence, Janice Wright told the court: “Marc had a lot of difficulties; he had a lot of problems with drugs. It had a big impact on him” She spoke to her son multiple times every day and helped him all the time.

She took him every day to collect his methadone prescription.

Mr McEntee asked about the events leading up to Marc Wright’s death in 2021. She said she had known Lewis Knight for four or five months.  Asked about the phone call from her son on March 22, she said: “I could hear Lewis Knight shouting, and carrying on.”

She said she heard Knight shout: “I want my ****ing money and if I don’t get it I’m going to ****ing kill you.” Mrs Wright asked to speak to Knight. She said: “I told him not to lay a finger on Marc.”

She agreed to pay the £100 debt.

Mrs Wright recalled being taken by her sister to her son’s Crummock Avenue home in Whitehaven and meeting her son at the gate. She refused him her son give Knight the money, insisting she did it herself.

When Knight asked her for £120, she refused, giving him the £100. She told the jury: “I asked Marc if he was all right; and did he want Lewis to leave. He said; ‘No, it’s all right, mam.”

The following morning, the court heard, Mrs Wright was given a lift by her sister to collect Marc Wright to take him to the pharmacy for his methadone. “Once he got into the car and we set off, he said his ribs were sore," she said.

“I asked why his ribs were sore. He said Lewis had dug him; that means, he’d punched him in his ribs.” In the early hours of March 27, Mr Wright again called his mum to ask for help as his lodger Glen Scott was shouting at him, demanding money.

Referring to the lodger, Mrs Wright said: “He was off his face on drugs. I stayed with Marc and told Glen he either went to bed or he went out and didn’t come back. He then went to bed, but I told him he was leaving in the morning.”

Two weeks before the March 22 incident, said Mrs Wright, her son reported to her that Glen Scott had punched him, giving him a black eye. On March 27, her son slept while she cleaned up and laterm when he became unwell, she took him home.

He collapsed in the early hours and died at 4.44am on March 28. Defence KC Iain Simpkin cross-examined Mrs Wright. She confirmed that her son took a variety of drugs, including heroin, cocaine and cannabis.

“Do you know if he was still taking drugs at the time of his death?,” asked Mr Simpkin. Mrs Wright said: “Yes, he was.” “Did he owe people money, from time to time?” Mrs Wright replied: “All the time.”

She accepted her son’s lodgers had a similar lifestyle to him as both were drug users.  She agreed that the male lodger Glen Scott often resorted to violence and he was somebody who posed a risk of violence to her son.

Referring to the call from her son on March 22, Mr Simpkin said: “When the phone call was made, Marc didn’t tell you he had been hit, did he?” She agreed that he did not. The KC continued: “In fact, when he rang you, did you believe that if you paid Lewis there would be no violence?” Mrs Wright replied: “Yes.”

She agreed that when she arrived at her son’s home, she had not noticed any injury on him and he wasn’t holding himself or protecting his ribs or complaining about having been hit. She said she was “fearful” for her son.

Asked why, she said: “Because of the lifestyle he led, taking drugs, the people he was hanging about with, the people who went to his house. There’s a lot of violence can come out of not paying for your drugs.

“Drug dealers, drug users, they’re all the same.”

The trial continues.