The 8th of January according to David Carr Burstow at Bristol Crown Court.

On the stand questioned by the defence.


When David Carr Burstow took the stand at Bristol Crown Court he was first questioned by Jane Miller his defending QC, the direction of her questioning was to ask Carr Burstow to recount the events of the 8th of January. Throughout the questioning of her client she consistently referred to Marc Riley. Her references were always to lay the blame for what happened firmly at Riley’s feet and to distance her client as much as possible. It was in essence a parade of questions to which the answer were…… 'Marc did it,' 'Marc made me,' 'It was Marc’s idea,' 'I was afraid of Marc.' Jane Miller also spent some time asking Carr Burstow of his past, his behavioral problems and in particular his ADHD and the effect this had on him. David Carr Burstow was described as having the intelligence of a 12 – 13 year old and being in the bottom 5% of the adult population in intelligence.

After Carr Burstow’s own brother had told the court that he had confessed to his involvement in the murder and Stephen Gurner had done the same Jane Miller was forced to examine in-depth the relationship between her client and Riley. It was the defense that needed to try and get across that Carr Burstow was afraid of his boyfriend and to this end made representation to the judge that Riley’s previous record be read out, the prosecution only agreed to this on the basis that Carr Burstow’s own relevant previous convictions were disclosed.

I should say at this point the disclosure of these previous Police cautions and convictions were dealt with prior to Carr Burstow taking the stand and went something like this:

Riley was cautioned by Police twice, both times he had lost his temper when he had perceived Carr Burstow’s actions with another woman as flirtatious and in a jealous fit had on one occasion forcibly pushed an unbroken pint glass into Carr Burstow’s chest, this happened in front of the woman in question and Carr Burstow own brother in a pub while the pair were in Norfolk together. On a second occasion at a fair ground in Wiltshire again in a fit of jealousy Riley had punched Carr Burstow in the face after he believed that he had been flirting with a girl they both knew, Riley subsequently went on to make a public scene by shouting and inviting Carr Burstow to slap him in the face back. On this second occasion it was Carr Burstow himself who reported the incident to the police. On both occasions Riley was cautioned by police. On the other hand David Carr Burstow (who was only 19) had been arrested numerous times and the jury got to hear only of his 4 CONVICTIONS that were relevant to this case. Carr Burstow had been convicted twice of Assault and Battery. Once he was fighting in the streets in Norfolk and then on a different occasion lost his temper and punched a fellow student at Lowestoft College. He was also convicted of Affray and most lately was convicted of carrying an 8 inch bayonet on the street in Wiltshire. He was convicted for all these charges and not simply CAUTIONED.

Clearly his defense team felt that it was necessary to prove that there were grounds for Carr Burstow to be frightened of Marc Riley and that the sacrifice of the jury finding out about his own past convictions was a necessary risk. The fact that Riley had never been convicted previously and that his cautions were due to him being jealous and insecure of their gay relationship and that Carr Burstow own previous arrest and convictions were related to his own violence toward (I don’t know what the other 10+ arrests were for, one can assume they did not involve violence) should give some insight to their characters or at least you would have thought so.

Carr Burstow explained that on January the 8th he was upstairs with Riley and had had an argument with him about whether to go out or not.

He said "I was upstairs with Marc. I said to him, joking around, go and give the landlady a slap."

Jane Miller pressed home the point that he was only joking.

He said when he told Mark Riley to slap the landlady, Riley smirked and smiled and then went downstairs. Carr Burstow described how later on Riley had called him from downstairs and that when he [Carr Burstow] went into the kitchen he found mum dead and wrapped in a shower curtain lying on the kitchen floor, there was a hammer on the side. He then went on to describe the disposal of her body. 


The defense’s questions surrounding the events following the murder were not concerned so much with what happened but with the state of mind of their client and his relationship with Riley. The general impression was Carr Burstow was influenced completely by Riley and lived in constant fear of his boyfriend as to the consequences of his non cooperation in the clean up/cover up. For example Jane Miller QC asked many times who withdrew the money at the cashpoint, who retained the money, who ordered the pizzas and food, who ordered the DVD’s and sex toys, the answered was always Marc. 


For me throughout this line of questioning I remembered very clearly the testimony of Laura Elvin (Stephen Gurner's girlfriend and friend of both Riley and Carr Burstow) some days earlier, she said that

"What ever David wanted, Marc got him."

Carr Burstow said himself said that he ‘spent money like water’ and therefore Marc kept the money, but when he was arrested there was over £400 in cash and my mothers debit card in his jacket pocket.

Ultimately the defense’s questions were designed to portray their client as the simpleton that was not in control of events and who went along with the deception because of fear.