A woman jailed for stabbing a man to death after he followed her home’should be treated as a victim of sexual violence’, say her family and campaigners.
Learna Cheng, was found guilty of murdering Dylan Bacon and imprisoned for life in September 2023 – but her case is being heard at the Court of Appeal today.
Cheng, who is also known as Lea-Rose, was accused of killing Mr Bacon at her flat in Old Swan, Liverpool, on March 14, 2022, after she and her grandfather chatted to the 39-year-old at a pub some hours earlier.
The trial heard Mr Bacon’s semen was later found on Cheng’s clothing and her bra had been damaged.
Cheng, 25 at the time, said she had no memory of what happened at the flat and that the only reason she would have stabbed Mr Bacon was if he tried to sexually assault her.
She said she would never have consented to having sex with Mr Bacon and adding that she had no attraction towards him.
After jailing Cheng, judge Neil Flewitt KC told her she had tried to ‘blacken’ Mr Bacon’s character’ to ‘avoid responsibility’ for what she had done to him.
He also said he ‘strongly suspected’ something had happened in the flat to cause Cheng to lose her temper and that she had been influenced by thealcohol she had drunk.
Among those campaigning for Cheng in the runup to the appeal is Nicola Mainwood, who works with Justice for Women (JFW) and The Centre for Women’s Justice.
She told the BBC this week: ‘This is a young, vulnerable woman who’s never been in trouble with the police.
‘But she has previously been in an abusive relationships and understandably, she sort of believes that something terrible must have happened for her to have reacted in this way towards him.’
On the night of the attack, Cheng was drinking with her grandfather at the Old Swan pub in Liverpool when Mr Bacon walked over and joined them at their table.
The group appeared to be getting on well as Cheng took a sip of Mr Bacon’s drink.
She was then seen becoming unwell a short time later and vomited on the table.
At this point her grandfather walked her back to his nearby flat.
Mr Bacon was said to have also left and gone to a different pub that overlooked the grandfather’s home.
Cheng was then seen leaving the flat and heading to her own home a few streets away, which was when Mr Bacon walked after her.
Roughly 90 minutes later, cameras outside Cheng’s flat showed the pair going into her home.
Two hours later, Mr Bacon staggered out after suffering multiple stab wounds.
Cheng’s father, 52-year-old Rodney Tucker, believes his daughter had been ‘stalked’ on the day she stabbed Mr Bacon.
He added that she was finding life in prison difficult.
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