Woman made 'hysterical' 999 call as boyfriend lay dying from stab wound to heart

A woman made a “hysterical” 999 call for help as her boyfriend lay dead or dying on her bedroom floor from a stab wound to the heart, a court heard.

Dionne Christie, then 21, is heard sobbing “mum, help” during the call to the Scottish Ambulance Service after her partner, Jevin Haig suffered the fatal wound in her flat in Falkirk.

At the High Court in Stirling, Christie, now 23, denied murdering him.

In a recording played to the court, Christie is heard telling a Scottish Ambulance Service call handler: “He’s been stabbed”, before adding, “Mum, help” to her mother, who was on another line.

The main call continues with Christie telling the 999 handler: “He’s come in, he’s been trying to start with me, he’s smashed all my house and brought out a knife, a big knife.”

The call handler asks: “What’s he done?”

Christie replies: “He’s got a stab mark right in the chest.”

The handler asked: “Has he done this himself?”

Christie responds: “Sorry? It’s while we’ve been like, he was grabbing me, he had the knife in his pants, I don’t know how I’ve done this.”

The operator then asks: “Has he pulled the knife out?”

Christie replies: “Yes.”

She is then instructed to begin chest compressions.

In the dock, Christie wept as the phone call was played.

KC Ian Duguid, defending, suggested she had sounded “hysterical” during the call.

He asked the call handler: “Do you agree with that or not?”

They replied: “Hysterical, distressed, yes.”

The call was received at 2.54pm on the day of the incident, June 26, 2022.

A downstairs neighbour said Christie, who lived in the top flat in his block in Falkirk, had banged loudly on his door at about 2.45pm.

He said Christie, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, looked visibly upset.

He said: “I saw spots of red blood on her upper thigh.”

The man said: “She said she wanted to phone her mother as her friend was badly hurt.

“I asked how bad and to call an ambulance if it was bad but she said it wasn’t too bad.

“She said her mum was a nurse, so she was keen to get hold of her.”

After contacting her mother, Christie asked her mother to phone back and then went back upstairs.

He said he had presumed Christie’s phone battery had died, which was why she had asked him to call her mother.

He told Mr Duguid: “She possibly said there’d been an accident.”

Jevin’s brother, now 19, said in pre-recorded evidence that after Jevin began seeing Christie, he was mostly at her house in Falkirk rather than at the family home in Edinburgh.

He said he had overheard his brother on the phone telling a friend that Christie was “crazy” and on another occasion overheard a call from a female whom he understood was Christie “screaming, ‘come through now'”.

He said he also overheard Jevin telling a friend that he’d had to get behind a door with his feet against it and his back against a wall “trying to stop Dionne”.

He said that in April 2022 his parents had found out that Christie, whom his brother had been seeing since January, was pregnant.

On the day of the alleged murder, two Scottish Ambulance Service technicians arrived at the scene of the incident at 3.12 pm and found Mr Haig on his back on the bedroom floor, the court was told.

Jurors were told that the ambulance staff carried out extensive procedures in an effort to revive him, and an emergency doctor also attended and administered treatment, but Mr Haig was pronounced dead 45 minutes later.

A post-mortem gave the cause of death as a single stab wound to the heart.

Christie, of Polmont, Stirlingshire, denies murdering Mr Haig by stabbing him on the body with a knife, having previously evinced malice or ill-will towards him.

She also denies assaulting him on various occasions at the Wright Street address between January 1, 2022 and June 25 – the day before his death.

She denies uttering threats of violence towards him, pushing him, attempting to strike him with a knife, repeatedly stabbing him with a knife, punching him on the head, scratching him, biting his hand, and striking him on the body with a pole.

Christie, who is represented by Ian Duguid KC, further denies assaulting a previous partner to his injury, on various occasions between March 2020 and March 2021, by punching him on the head and body, presenting a knife at him, and threatening him with violence.

The trial continues.