Francis Casey stabbed a man 14 times with a pair of scissors to the buttocks, legs and chest after a drinking session ‘got out of hand’
Francis Casey pictured when he was jailed in 2022
A topless thug who stabbed a man 14 times with a pair of scissors has a history of making “cowardly threats” to burn down buildings, including claiming that he would torch a café and a house with his own baby inside. Francis Casey bit his victim’s nose before repeatedly thrusting the weapon into his buttocks, legs and chest after a drinking session “got out of hand”.
Having also assaulted three women, he then warned “I’m getting the boys down and I’m going to burn your f***ing flat down” during a final parting shot. His own defence counsel conceded that the outcome “could have been death”.
Liverpool Crown Court heard this week that police were called to reports of a disturbance on Orrets Mews in Woodchurch, Wirral, shortly after 4am on September 27 last year and arrived to find Paul Murray lying on the ground bleeding. Enquiries by officers subsequently revealed he had earlier attended the home of Casey’s partner Michelle Aspinall on the same street, alongside his sister Janine and niece Nikkita.
Isabella Denn-White, prosecuting, detailed how they had been drinking in the kitchen at this time and were joined by the 33-year-old defendant, who had been with his girlfriend for “a few weeks”. During the course of the evening, she and Janine Murray had been “talking about their relationship”, which apparently included an incident two days previously when he had allegedly “threatened her with a knife”.
Casey, of Alfred Mews in Liverpool city centre, was said to have become “abusive and aggressive” upon overhearing their conversation and hit Ms Aspinall, causing her to fall off a chair. He then “clenched his fists and took his top off” before grabbing hold of Mr Murray, “lunging forward” and biting his face.
Nikkita Murray thereafter helped the injured man out of the property, at which stage Casey grabbed Janine Murray by her throat with both hands. She was left struggling to breathe as a result of this assault.
When Nikkita Murray subsequently returned inside, she was punched twice to the throat. Mr Murray too went back into the address, supposedly armed with an unspecified weapon, but Casey pulled the other man’s coat over his head, leaving him unable to see.
The complainant then felt a series of strikes to his legs and backside during a struggle before he was bitten for a second time, this time to the nose. Having “managed to get outside”, he collapsed in the street and later awoke to hear his niece shouting that he had been stabbed.
Mr Murray described “feeling like he was going to die” as a result. He was subsequently found to have suffered 14 stab wounds to his legs, buttocks and chest, injuries which where closed with sutures after he was taken to Aintree Hospital.
Casey was meanwhile heard to remark to Janine Murray as he left the scene: “I know where you f***ing live. I’m getting the boys down and I’m going to burn your f***ing flat down.”
Ring doorbell footage obtained by PCs meanwhile showed him armed with a knife in the street two days beforehand on September 25, with the weapon ultimately being “taken off him by neighbours”. Casey has eight previous convictions for 12 offences, including receiving 19 weeks for harassment and threatening to destroy property in July last year.
This related to incident in April 2024, when he attended the café where his former partner worked. While she was not present at the time, he warned one of her colleagues: “I’ve respect for you Carly, but I’ll burn this place down. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
The ECHO also previously reported that Casey was locked up for 22 months for stalking in 2022 after telling the mother of his 10-month-old daughter “I’m coming to your house to burn it down with the baby in it”. He also threatened to “smack in the heads of” his ex-girlfriend and their child in a series of disturbing voicemail messages, which he blamed on a three-month drink and drug binge.
The woman told the court: “I can hardly bring myself to listen to the voicemails, as they make me feel physically sick. I fear, in the state he gets himself in, he may one day kill me.
“I want him to get help for himself first, then his kids. I just don’t ever think he will change and it’s so sad, from the lad I first met who would do anything for anyone to the one he has become.”
Anthony Barraclough, defending, told the court during Casey’s latest appearance that his client had acted in “excessive self defence” in stabbing Mr Murray, adding: “There was drunkenness and there was trouble. Everybody was drunk. There were massive amounts of drink.
“Mr Murray went outside after there had been an altercation. He was out there, behaving in a bad way. He is drunk, and he has got something. It could have been a weapon. The defendant thought that it was a metallic weapon.
“He does not go back in to protect or defend someone in there. He goes back in there to attack. The defendant was on his back on the floor. Mr Murray was on top of him. The scissors were in the hand of the defendant. There were shallow wounds caused with the scissors to try to get his attacker off.
“He is a man who has a history of involvement in drugs, when one looks at his record. I do not think that there is anything in the past that indicates serious violence. It is all cowardly threats and behaviour in drink.
“This is a group of people intentionally getting drunk and then it getting out of hand. Luckily, there was no serious harm. We all know that it could have been an artery. It could have been death. It is a terrible situation.”
Casey admitted unlawful wounding, intentional strangulation, making threats with an offensive weapon in a private place, threatening to destroy property and possession of a bladed article in a public place. Appearing via video link to HMP Liverpool wearing a grey Nike t-shirt on Monday, he was jailed for four years and five months and handed a restraining order banning him from contacting the Murray family members for five years.
Sentencing, the Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC said: “What is clear is that all of you were drinking a huge quantity of alcohol. You indicate that you had drunk some enormous quantity of alcohol before these incidents happened.
“There can be no doubt that all of the disturbances that happened and the violence would have been fuelled by the significant quantity of alcohol which had been consumed. Whatever the cause, there was some sort of argument which led to everything, as it is sometimes described, kicking off.
“Quite what happened is not altogether clear. CCTV appears to show that [Mr Murray] has, in his hand, something which might have been a weapon, something believed by the defendant to be a weapon.
“The defendant had the scissors in his hand and used these to stab Mr Murray repeatedly. He ended up with 14 stab wounds to his body, multiple stab wounds to his legs, buttocks and abdomen.
“Plainly, any one of those could have been fatal. This was serious violence used towards Mr Murray. I will sentence you on the basis that this was initially a response to an unlawful attack by Mr Murray, but it became unlawful given the nature of the response.”