BRUTON: HOUSE LOOKED LIKE BOMB HAD GONE OFF AFTER CAR SMASH

A shop worker wept today (Tues) as she recalled how her house shook when her jealous ex-boyfriend smashed his car into her front room at 80mph.

Tara Lavery said it looked as if a ‘bomb had gone off’ after Edmund Bruton, 42, ploughed in to her terraced home in a black Peugeot 206.

The collision demolished the front wall of the house in South View Avenue, Caversham, near Reading, Berkshire, on the afternoon of February 26 this year, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.

Three children who were in the lounge at the time were ‘very fortunate’ to escape with minor injuries, Inner London Crown Court has heard.

Ms Lavery, who had been upstairs reading a book, said: ‘They had made a camp in the front room. The girls had taken down duvets and throws. They were taking turns on the Wii.

‘I was about to choose my clothes from the wardrobe.

‘All I could hear was this horrendous noise.

‘A car was definitely revving.

‘There was a sick feeling it was something related to him.

‘Obviously I couldn’t know at the time.

‘It was just the most amazing noise as the car hit the house and the revving engine, smoke and dust.

‘The whole house shook.

‘I was in my bedroom.

‘I didn’t know if the children were alive in that front room.’

She struggled to put on a dressing gown as she dashed down the stairs, meeting a boy coming up the stairs.

‘At least I knew there was one child alive,’ said Ms Lavery.

She stood in the doorway and first saw a girl with a head injury.

A neighbour was helping another girl out through ‘what would have been the front window’.

‘It looked like a bomb had gone off in the front room,’ she added.

‘There was smoke everywhere.

‘The smell, I can’t even put into words what that was like.

‘I saw a black car.

‘I knew instantly. It confirmed what I thought.

‘I heard somebody shouting to take the children to the back of the house.

‘I’m trying to clean off some of the blood and dust from the children.’

Ms Lavery said she first saw Bruton when she heard a noise and walked to the front room.

She added: ‘I saw a paramedic talking to him.

‘I didn’t walk any further into that room. I left.’

The court heard Bruton had sent her text messages between 1pm and 1.30pm. The first of which read: ‘You could have avoided it if you answered me.’

The second said: ‘Will be waiting for you in hell.’

Ms Lavery said the messages had not arrived until she was at the police station giving a statement.

She also had no idea he had phoned until she saw her missed calls later, nor had she realised Bruton’s friend had managed to get through seconds before the impact.

Ingrid Cleaver, a teacher who was worried about Bruton’s state of mind, ‘heard the screams’ as she spoke to a boy who picked up Ms Lavery’s phone.
 
He was on his way up the stairs to give her the handset as the car raced into the wall.

The court has heard Bruton planned to ‘take out as many people as possible’ when he drank a litre of antifreeze and launched the attack.

Bruton allegedly told a friend he suspected her of having an affair. Weeks earlier he had warned Ms Lavery he would be ‘famous’ by the summer.

A passing postman had to dive out of the way as the car accelerated towards the property, jurors have heard..

Bruton, who was also injured after propping a garden fork between the steering wheel and his neck before the crash, spent a fortnight in hospital.

Ms Lavery said the pair got to know each other on dating website Plenty of Fish in April of last year, before meeting face-to-face.

They saw one another every weekend, with Bruton, who ran Wembley hair and beauty salon Amo, normally visiting her, and she allowed him to treat her house as a ‘home-from-home’.

But by January of this year, the relationship was on the rocks, and the atmosphere was ‘strained’ when they met for her birthday meal in London later that month.

Ms Lavery told the jury: ‘Before dinner actually arrived, he told me he was going to be famous and in the papers by June.

‘I asked him a direct question. I was never given any answer and the subject was changed.’

Two days before the crash she got a call from a beautician at the salon.

‘Sam rang me and told me he was in a complete state,’ said Ms Lavery.

‘He’d left the salon crying, that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone he was at the salon that day.’

Ms Lavery travelled to see him and the pair had a coffee at the premises. She asked him about some ‘unnerving, strange texts’ he sent her and added: ‘I said “I feel like you’re threatening me”.

‘He said “I don’t make empty threats”.’

Ms Lavery said she returned to Reading and Bruton paid her a ‘midnight visit’, during which it is claimed he formed the impression she was seeing another man.

‘I knew it was him,’ she said.

‘There was a light tap.

‘He was calling me through the letter box, but I wouldn’t answer. He went.’

Jurors have heard Bruton had a number of difficulties besides the relationship breakdown, including his elderly mother being admitted to hospital and business problems.

Bruton, of Harrow Road, Wembley, nw London, denies attempted murder of one or more of the occupants of (131) South View Avenue, Caversham; criminal damage with intent to endanger life in the same terms; criminal damage reckless as to whether life is endangered; and dangerous driving.

The trial continues