Denbigh man Jason Cooper - charged with the murder of his former partner Laura Stuart - sent messages to another man falsely accusing him of having a relationship with her.

Cooper said that he was ready to kill and erase her.

Giving evidence to the murder trial jury on the fourth day at Mold Crown Court prosecution witness Jamie Dowell said that he had known Laura for about 25 years and she was simply a friend he had known in school.

He had not had a relationship with her while she was with Cooper or after their relationship ended, he said.

Mr Dowell said that he had walked her home once after she and Cooper parted and she kissed him on the lips but that was it.

In evidence, Mr Dowell said that he did not recognise the Laura he knew from the descriptions of her in Cooper’s messages.

He had seen Laura upset and walking away from Jason Cooper a few times.

Mr Dowell said that Cooper messaged saying he had heard he was having a relationship with Laura and warning him she would be unreliable.

Cooper had said she would be out to ruin him, that she was self-centred, and would to try and cause problems.

“Be careful around her if I was you,” he said.

Then he received a message in the week leading up to her death in which Cooper asked him why had not been honest about Laura?

Cooper said: “I have no issue with you Jamie, now I have.”

Mr Dowell said that he had no idea what Cooper meant.

But the defendant messaged him: “Well you have been seeing her and messing about – I am told when I was with her. Very low in my opinion and I am not at all happy.”

But Mr Dowell said that was not true.

Laura was a friend and he he did not want to have the message conversations with Cooper.

He told the jury he did not know what Cooper was on about.

Mr Dowell said he had not been seeing Laura either during her relationship with Cooper or afterwards.

“There was nothing going on between me and Laura at all,” he said.

But Cooper messaged him: “She is a destructive, vindictive woman who lies constantly.”

Cooper alleged that Laura was playing mind games and accused him wrongly of “s****** her all night.”

The defendant had sent a message to say: “I am ready to kill mate that is how I feel” and “wasted three years of my life on her and she f***** me over.”

On August 6 he met Cooper in The Golden Lion. “He thought I was seeing Laura and I wanted to clear the air, because it was not true,” he said.

Laura had been at the pub and Mr Dowell said that she later messaged him.

She asked what he had been talking to Cooper about.

In the message Laura had said that if Mr Dowell had said anything about her seeing someone: “You do know what he will do to me.

“He will beat the s*** out of me now. You’ve just dug my grave.”

That day Cooper messaged Jamie Dowell to say: “I’m ready to kill mate that’s how I feel. I invested three years plus of my life into her….and she f***** me over”.

Another message spoke of erasing her and he wrote: “I will put end to her s***, so easy for me, it will happen.”

Mr Dowell said that he had not taken those messages in until after what happened.

Cross examined, he agreed that in one message to Cooper he had called Laura a fruitcake but he did not know why he had done so and said he simply wanted to stop the defendant messaging him.

The prosecution say Cooper brutally stabbed his former partner with a kitchen knife after he lay in wait for her as she returned home from The Golden Lion.

Cooper. 28 of St Hilary's Terrace, denies the murder of Laura Jayne Stuart, 33, a mother of two, and wounding David Roberts with intent to cause him GBH, in August of last year.

The trial, before Mr Justice Simon Picken, is proceeding.