Man claims he killed drug dealer in self-defence before dismembering his body

A 49-year-old man accused of murdering and dismembering the body of a drug dealer has told a court he killed him in self-defence in an argument over an unpaid debt.

Benjamin Atkins and Debbie Pereira, 29, are both charged with the murder of 48-year-old Simon Shotton, whose two sawed-off legs were found in packages on the Manor Steps Zig Zag footpath on Boscombe seafront in Bournemouth, Dorset, in August 2023.

They are also on trial at Winchester Crown Court accused of preventing the burial of a corpse and perverting the course of justice.

Giving evidence, Atkins said that he had first met Mr Shotton to buy heroin and cocaine from him before Mr Shotton began visiting the home of the defendants and asking if he could stay with them.

He added: “We were never pals, he was a drug dealer, I started getting the hump with him, he started treating our house like a hotel, very disrespectful.”

Atkins said that he had received a “threatening” message from Mr Shotton, who had said that the defendant owed him £270, which Atkins denied.

The defendant told the court that when he returned home with Pereira on August 18, they were confronted by Mr Shotton who was holding a syringe “aggressively”.

He said that Mr Shotton said to him: “You’d better have my money or I am going to f****** kill you.”

He added that Mr Shotton “wasn’t pleased about it” and said: “He was frothing at the mouth, he was livid.”

Atkins continued: “He had a knife in his hand, he poked me in the stomach with it a couple of times.

“I have tried to defend myself by trying to grab the knife. It was f****** carnage. He was going to kill me, there was do doubt about it.”

Describing his feelings at the time, Atkins said: “The only way I can describe it is terror.”

He added: “It was like he was possessed, he was definitely on drugs, 100%.”

Atkins said: “This guy had a knife, he was coming to kill me, I done whatever I could to stop him.”

He added: “I was in a state of shock, in a state of panic, a state of terror, unless you have experienced anything like it, you wouldn’t know, I checked his pulse, there was no pulse.”

Atkins said that he then smoked some crack cocaine using Mr Shotton’s pipe because he was “shocked”.

He said that he went with Pereira to sell Mr Shotton’s phone later the day at a Cash Creators shop for money to buy drugs, and added that was his co-defendant’s “only involvement”.

“I pulled his body into the garden, covered him up. Later in the evening, when Debs was asleep, I went into the garden and I cut him up.

“I wouldn’t have done that if I wasn’t under the influence, I wouldn’t have cut him up, I was scared, I was traumatised, I was panicked, I was under extreme stress as well as under the influence.

“What I done was truly awful, it’s horrendous what I have done and I deserve to be punished for what I have done.

“I am sorry to his family, I am sorry to my family. It’s difficult for me to be remorseful to a man who was trying to kill me in my own house.”

The trial continues.