Jack Frew trial: Murder accused tells how he stabbed ‘sex pest’ victim to death

A TEENAGER who has admitted stabbing a schoolboy to death told detectives his victim was a “sex pest”, and that he just wanted to scare him, a court heard.

Jurors at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday heard a taped interview given by Craig Roy to police in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, on 9 May, 2010. Roy admits stabbing 16-year-old Jack Frew to death but denies murder.

During the two hours it took to play the interview, Roy sat in the dock with his head bowed.

In the interview, Roy was asked: “What made Jack Frew a sex pest?” He replied: “He would never stop just pressurising, trying to get what he wanted from anyone at any time.”

The 19-year-old told police that he had given oral sex to Jack in school some months before and claimed that Jack then threatened to tell Roy’s lover, Christopher Hannah, what had happened.

Roy said he loved Mr Hannah and felt guilty about what he had done with Jack. He described Jack as “over-confident and seemed kind of false”.

Roy claimed that Jack told him to meet him at the parish church in East Kilbride around 6pm on 6 May, 2010.

When they met, Roy said, Jack insisted on going into a nearby wooded area.

Detective Constable James Waddell asked Roy: “Did Jack ever say he was going to tell Chris about what happened?”

He replied: “Yes he said he would tell.”

The police officer then asked: “What are you saying to me?” Roy replied: “Blackmail, so to speak.”

Roy said he took a small knife from his East Kilbride home because he wanted to scare Jack.

He said: “I took a knife, thinking that would scare him. He wanted me to have sex with him. That’s when it got a bit blurry. I remember panicking and being scared and Chris was there. I can’t remember how it went. It just happened very, very fast.

“It was only afterwards I realised what I had done. I remember falling, falling with Jack.”

He was asked whether he could remember what he saw when he looked at Jack, and replied: “I remember his neck, it was cut open.”

Roy was then asked what else he saw. He said: “Just blood. On me, on him.”

He claimed he tried to talk to Jack and check his pulse, but by that time he was dead.

When he was charged with murder, Roy said: “It was never meant to happen.”

Roy and Jack were pupils at Duncanrig High in East Kilbride.

Earlier, the court heard Jack was found to have a number of stab wounds to his chest and back, and his windpipe had been cut.

Detective Sergeant James Munro told the court that Jack’s body was in a wooded area off a cycle path.

Mr Munro said: “I noticed that his throat had been cut. When I moved the body later on, I saw the windpipe had been cut.”

The court also heard that Jack had sent a sexually explicit text to Roy just hours before he was stabbed to death.

The jury was read all 82 text messages sent between Roy and Jack from December 2009 to 6 May, 2010. Many of them related to schoolwork and four were in schoolboy French.

The trial before Lord Doherty continues.