Various text messages were also read out
Danny Cahalane and Paris Wilson(Image: Facebook)
A jury watched footage of Danny Cahalane’s ex-wife wailing in fear for her disabled daughter’s safety and shouting out “I knew this was going to happen”, as police informed her of the attack on him.
Paris Wilson, later accused of being involved in the alleged murder, spent her last day in the witness box today (Wednesday, March 25) at Winchester Crown Court.
The 35-year-old, of The Quay in Plymouth, continued to be cross-examined about the contact she had with a drugs boss to whom her ex-husband Danny Cahalane owed a drug debt of around £120,000.
The trial of nine people – seven men from London and two women from Plymouth – has been underway at the court since late January, and several of those accused of involvement in the incident have been giving evidence in their defence.
Seven of the nine, including Wilson, are accused of 38-year-old Danny Cahalane’s murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter.
Lead prosecutor Joanna Martin KC previously told the jury that Danny, who died on May 3, 2025, following an acid attack at his home in Lipson Road, Plymouth, in the early hours of February 21, 2025, was a “drug dealer in Plymouth who owed a large amount of money to another drug dealer further up the chain of command”.
Danny Cahalane(Image: PA)
The court heard that Danny admitted to police he had also gambled with the profits, including money which was meant to have gone to a drugs boss, named in court as Ryan Kennedy, also known as ‘Frost’.
Ms Martin KC noted that phone records showed how Danny had tried to contact Wilson after an incident outside her home on January 19, 2025, which allegedly saw Frost’s underlings attempt to kidnap Danny.
She pointed out that Danny had suggested Wilson had given the drugs boss her address, to which she replied “I’m busy, f*** off you scumbag, put my baby at risk, you’re so done”.
Regarding his reply, that he would have the matter sorted and would meet the men the following day at her address, Wilson told the court: “Danny does tell a lot of lies”.
She admitted she went on to put messages on Snapchat claiming that Danny was a “grass”, which led him to send a flurry of messages to her asking what she was trying to do.
Ms Martin KC directed Wilson to a message she later sent to her mother referring to a message she said she received from the drugs boss, telling her “Frost said ‘you’re good, you’ve driven him mad'” with a smiling laughing emoji.
Wilson denied this was Frost complimenting her, arguing it was merely a “comment”.
She went on to explain that Frost told her if Danny turned up the following day to hand over some or all of the debt, “I’ll sort you out proper – he’s petrified of you lol”.
Wilson said that things were “unfolding throughout the day” rather than being pre-planned and pre-scheduled, when asked about why she was communicating and arguing with her ex-husband and then communicating with Frost.
Police on scene guard following acid attack incident in Lipson Road, Plymouth(Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)
Ms Martin KC, who had accused Wilson yesterday of “gaslighting” her ex-husband, today suggested that she was being praised by Frost for her behaviour and had “manipulated” Danny.
Wilson said she had already admitted in court yesterday during cross examination that she had arranged with Frost to ensure Danny was outside her home on the morning of January 19, specifically so that his underlings could meet with Danny.
She also admitted that she had told Frost that they were not to approach Danny until their daughter, who he was dropping off, was inside her home.
She claimed that she did not give away the address of Danny’s girlfriend to “Scousers” who contacted her, saying she only told them she was in “Sherford” and no more. She reiterated numerous times that she did not know where Danny was living – although she learned after the acid attack that he had moved back into the former marital home in Lipson Road.
Observing how she had berated Danny in her messages to him, claiming that his suggestion that she had given Frost the address was him being “paranoid”, Ms Martin KC suggested Wilson was “manufacturing rage” against her ex-husband.
Wilson replied: “Oh, my rage is not manufactured – it’s genuine”. When told she loved the “drama of all of this”, she denied this, saying she had “a lot going on – the drama of this is by the by”.
Reminded that she messaged Danny saying Frost had told her his underlings would return to her home on January 20 and that this was “everyone’s bill now”, Ms Martin KC said that this was a “manufactured version of events by you”.
Wilson replied “yes” but added that Frost was owed “a lot of money”, she did not know where he was – although she had previously said she had been told he was in Dubai.
She insisted that Frost was not a friend of hers adding that she had tried to keep him “at arm’s length and stay working on side with him to sort his and Danny’s debt out, but I don’t trust him – he is a drug dealer and he’s clearly wanting his money”.
Wilson denied she had lied during the trial about her contact with Frost. She said that her message to Danny about Frost telling her to “get the kids out of the house” when his underlings returned the following day was true, adding she “specifically remember him [Frost] saying to get the kids out” – but she could not remember when he said that.
Police on scene guard following acid attack incident in Lipson Road, Plymouth(Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)
Messages to mum
Noting a further message later in the day from Wilson to her mother, where she referred to Frost promising her a “nice drink out of this”, Ms Martin KC questioned whether she had been in touch with the drugs boss throughout the day. Wilson replied: “Possibly, I don’t remember.”
Questioned about her message to her mother stating “he wants me to help with other stuff” she said this was about Frost’s hope that she could help him with shipping containers of drugs, which she previously told the court was a “load of rubbish”.
Wilson said this was part of their conversation which she had used to distract Frost from Danny’s debt, adding that the drugs boss “didn’t know it was a load of rubbish – I did”.
Noting another message to her mother, where Wilson claimed Frost had spoken to Danny and then told her he had “never spoken to anyone like him, he said it’s a mental health problem, like split personality”, Ms Martin KC questioned the kind of conversations about Danny she was having with Frost.
Wilson replied: “Well, he’s asking why is Danny saying one thing and doing another. I’m quite used to it. I’ve had it for a number of years.”
Wilson was shown messages where her mother said she had seen Danny in Plymouth shortly after he had claimed he was going to head to London to pay Frost. Wilson had replied “Oh my god, let me message F” then alerted Frost that Danny was not in London, as well as messaging Danny as to when he was going there.
Ms Martin KC asked Wilson why she was in “regular contact” with Frost, to which she claimed it was because she wanted to show Danny’s “blatant lies”.
She denied having any loyalty to Frost, but when asked by the Judge Ms Justice Heather Norton why was she telling Frost this and what did it have to do with her, Wilson replied: “I was gossiping – a lot of it was absolutely gossip” before admitting it was both to her mother and with Frost.
Asked if she had the same kind of relationship with Frost as she did with her mother, she replied: “Yes, but it was more to Danny’s detriment than it was to Frost’s gain.”
Asked if she thought she could get money out of the situation, Wilson said that this was “secondary to any of this discussion”.
Questioned about her claim that she had heard “threats both ways”, Wilson said that she had heard Danny say that he knew were Frost’s “baby mum” lived.
Asked if there was ever an explicit threat she recalled Danny making regarding Frost, she claimed that he told her he would “make her [Frost’s girlfriend] look different”, but she admitted that she did not know if he ever actually said this to Frost, only that he had definitely said this to her.
Wilson insisted she only “spoke spitefully” towards Danny, but did not act spitefully and denied she manipulated him.
Police on scene guard following acid attack incident in Lipson Road, Plymouth(Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)
Repeatedly asked what she thought would be the consequence of posting two messages on her Snapchat page that Danny was a “grass”, she replied “to embarrass”. Asked again if she considered the consequences of being labelled a grass “in the drug world” Wilson appeared to be confused about the question, answering again “no, I put it up to embarrass him, it was just to embarrass him”.
She claimed that she re-contacted Frost again later after Danny appeared to be acting unusually when he dropped of their daughter on another occasion. In a message to her mother, she said she was “fuming” because Frost told her Danny had “robbed him” and he did not want to talk to her, telling her to “f*** off”.
She admitted on February 17 she then rounded on Danny, criticising that he had not solved the issue, leaving Wilson to fear that Frost would take action and put her and their daughter at risk.
Wilson confirmed that at this point she was “angry” with Danny, highlighted by her message to him “just drop dead” and that he would not be allowed to see their daughter for half term.
She confirmed that this was the point in their exchange when she issued the ominous line “so I hope you and your butters girl end up with acid in your face” before responding to his question “are you mad?” with her curt reply “don’t ever message me again”.
Wilson denied she was angry that Frost would not message her again, saying she was angry that Danny had “robbed him” and that the matter was still not sorted. She accepted that she could say “very unkind” things when she was angry and that the hope that Danny and his girlfriend had acid thrown in their faces was “horrible, it’s a horrible thing to say.”
Ms Martin KC added: “Certainly in the context of what happened to Danny four nights later?”
Wilson replied: “Even more so”. She added that this line was not a “simple coincidence”, saying that she had heard this as a threat before. She insisted that while she had heard such threats before, she was not “a party to it being enacted”.
She told the jury she had heard Frost say he was going to do things like this to Danny “amongst other things, on more than one occasion”, adding that she recalled him claiming in early January that he would “melt his [Danny’s] face off”.
Wilson insisted that if she knew that Danny was going to be attacked with acid on February 21: “I can tell you right now [her daughter] would not have been there”, adding that at the “bare minimum” if she had known she would have gone to get her daughter and told Danny at the front door “this is what I’ve heard is going to happen to you”.
She said that hurting Danny would be like hurting their daughter, explaining that her daughter needed him.
Wilson explained: “I’m not an idiot Ms Martin. I know that something like acid would cause significant harm to someone, that could hurt them, that they could lose their sight. That could have happened to [daughter] in that house.”
Ms Martin KC: “It could have just changed their face?”
Wilson: “Why would I want [daughter’s] dad to look like that?
She claimed that by the time of the attack a “lot of people” knew about Danny’s debt problem, citing her mother, her sister and her brother.
Police bodyworn footage
The jury were shown police bodyworn video footage recorded by one of two officers who were sent to Wilson’s home in Oreston shortly after the attack on Danny in the early hours of February 21.
They watched as the officers walked in to find Wilson in her pyjamas, telling her “everyone’s fine and breathing”. Wilson appeared increasingly frantic and distressed, stating her daughter’s name, as the female officer tells her her daughter was “fine and well”, but there had been an incident “at her dad’s address”.
Wilson asks if her daughter was safe, and the officer tells her it’s why they’ve come to get her.
She is seen to sit on her sofa as the officer says her daughter is “with paramedics” which is met by Wilson immediately panicking. The officers say the paramedics were “not for her”.
The officer explains that police and paramedics were at the address where an incident had occurred involving ‘her dad’ and that her daughter was “asleep in bed” and was with the paramedics and that she was “safe and well and uninjured”.
At this point Wilson wails: “I knew this was going to happen. I’m a bad mum. Because I know what he’s like. And I made a f***ing decision to let her go with him”.
A male officer attempted to intervene and told her: “Paris, he’s a victim tonight”.
Wilson is seen to angrily snap back: “No, he’s not, he’s not a f***ing victim.
“This is all – he’s brought this on himself and I knew about it. I knew he was in debt to people but I still let my daughter go there and I feel like s***.”
In the car on the way to Lipson Road, Wilson tells the officers they had been separated for around four years and their lives had gone in different directions, adding that he was “caught up in a lot of bad stuff” and that “he never changed”.
She said that Danny got involved with another girl, adding “I don’t get involved with his business”. She went on to state that “about a month ago” he came to see their daughter after school and there were two black men who “tried to get in the car with him and he drove off”.
She went on to tell the two officers that she had been hearing that he owed “a lot of people money” and when people came up to her about it she would tell them she was “oblivious to all this, I don’t want to hear it, it’s not my life, it’s not my business.”
Paris Wilson attends Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on April 24, 2025 (Image: Carl Eve/PlymouthLive)
The footage was briefly stopped and Ms Martin KC questioned Wilson if she was manipulating the two officers by not telling them the truth about the incident at her home. Wilson began to cry in the witness box, saying: “My baby was in the house – I wasn’t thinking about manipulating anyone.”
She said she did not know where her daughter or Danny was and that she had lied to the police in the car because she feared if social services found out about Danny they would inevitably ask Wilson what their daughter was doing with him.
Asked why she did not ask what had happened in the house or to Danny, she replied: “Because I didn’t care – I cared about [her daughter] who was still in the property.”
The jury were shown the rest of the footage and heard Wilson telling the officers that her concern was that after the two black men had approached Danny’s car and he drove off at speed, she had questioned him about the dangerous way he had driven, especially if he had had their daughter in the car at the time. She said he would reply that “everything was fine, you don’t need to worry”.
When the female officer asked if Wilson thought the incident at her home and this incident was all related to a drug debt, Wilson replied: “I’m absolutely certain it’s a drug debt” before adding “at the end of the day I’ve got no loyalty to him, my loyalty is to this little girl. Yes, he’s a victim today, but this is a situation that he’s brought largely on himself”.
Questioned as to why she did not remark about the location when she arrived, she said “it could’ve been the Eiffel Tower – I’m more concerned about getting [daughter]”.
Wilson told Ms Martin KC that she muttered under her breath “I don’t understand” as she got out of the car and this was in direct reference to the location they had arrived at, telling the court that this was the place she was still having to pay a County Court Judgement for unpaid rent from when it was the marital home.
Footage from the journey back to her home with the same officers, Wilson is heard to say: “I suppose I should ask if he’s okay.”
Wilson said that even now she struggled to have empathy towards Danny, saying “my baby was in that house” but she later said that she “absolutely did not hate him that much”.
Ms Martin KC said that in her anger she did not think through the consequences of what would happen that night, Wilson replied: “When it comes to [daughter], yes I do – she could well have been in that bed with him”. She said Danny had “minimised” the threat to everyone and she had believed him.
Ms Martin KC asked: “So your last word on this is it’s Danny’s fault?”
Wilson replied: “Of course it’s not Danny’s fault. But I do feel anger towards him I’ve never said that I don’t. But I feel so sad about what happened and I wish I knew what you say I knew, I wish.”
A total of nine defendants – seven men from London and two women from Plymouth – remain on trial, with seven of these accused of Mr Cahalane’s murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter, on May 3, 2025.
They are Paris Wilson, 35, of The Quay, Plymouth; Jude Hill, 43, of Wantage Gardens, Plymouth; Abdulrasheed Adedoja, 23, of Neasden, London; Ramarnee Bakas-Sithole, 23, of Islington, London; Israel Augustus, aged 26, of Tottenham, London; Isanah Sungum, 22, of Edmonton, London; and Brian Kalemba, 23, of Barking, London.
Five of the defendants are charged with the attempted kidnapping of Mr Cahalane on January 19 2025, at The Quay in Oreston, Plymouth. They are Adedoja, Bakas-Sithole and Wilson, along with Jean Mukuna, 23, and Arrone Mukuna, 25, both of Camden, London.
All – except for Jude Hill – are also charged with participating in criminal activities of an organised crime group, namely the supply of drugs, including the enforcement of drug debts and profiting from the supply of drugs, in which Ryan Kennedy played a leading role.
All nine deny the charges.
Kelvin Asante, aged 23 and of Eresby Place, London, appeared at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on January 20 following his arrest on January 19 this year. He was charged with murder and participating in the criminal activities of an organised crime group.
He appeared at Winchester Crown Court via video link on January 21 and was remanded into custody. He will appear for a plea and trial preparation hearing on April 1, ahead of trial dates of either August 3 or October 19 at the same court.
The trial continues.
