An amateur mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter is accused of stabbing his pregnant girlfriend in the abdomen multiple times after she refused to abort their unborn child.
Nicholas Leaning of Scunhtorpe in the UK says he is not guilty of attempted murder and attempted child destruction.
In June, Leaning allegedly ambushed and stabbed his girlfriend five times to kill her unborn child. Lauren Oliver said she and Leaning had been involved in a relationship for two years, and he had lived in her home. However, she learned he had been seeing an ex-girlfriend, and the relationship ended last November — after she was pregnant with his child.
Oliver says Leaning demanded she abort the child, and refused to participate in a DNA test. Eventually, he threatened her and the child, and then he assaulted her, she said.
Leaning was wearing his MMA training gear and a mask, but prosecutor Simon Waley said that Leaning “seemed almost to be smiling before stabbing her for the fifth time. He then fled from the scene.”
In video testimony to the court, Oliver said that during the alleged assault “all I could see was his eyes staring at me.”
Oliver was rushed to a hospital after the alleged attack, and her baby was delivered via emergency cesarean section.
The child was born at 34 weeks, weighing just over four pounds.
Leaning, who has a 2-2 record as an amateur fighter, has said he is not guilty of the alleged crimes, and told police that Oliver assaulted him with a knife. Waley told the court that the idea was “absurd.”
“It's absurd that a 34-week pregnant Lauren launched an attack on her cage fighter ex-boyfriend and then went on to stab herself and her unborn baby five times in an act of spite against the defendant,” he said.
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Waley also says that Leaning's story changed several times during police questioning.