It started with a group of friends enjoying a drink in a Cwmbran pub and ended with three of them killed in the most horrific of circumstances by a delusional schizophrenic. Crime reporters HENRY WIDDAS and RHIANNON BEACHAM unravel the tragic events of April 14

STEVEN Price plough-ed his father's 4x4 into three friends knocking them down "like skittles", Cardiff crown court heard yesterday.

Martin Connop, 31, and John Gibbings, 37, died instantly and Emma Proctor, aged 25, died from her head injuries the following day.

Prosecutor Peter Murphy, QC, told how Price, a paranoid schizophrenic, had wrongly believed that Mr Connop wanted to kill him and later told his father, "It was either him or me".

Mr Murphy said 30-year-old Price had spent the afternoon of April 14 digging a trench in his back garden, at Ty Pwca Road, Pontnewydd, looking for bodies he believed to be buried there.

"Unsurprisingly he found none," he said. "He decided he needed to get out and made his way to his parents' home."

Mr Murphy said Price borrowed his father's 4x4 Ford Maverick and drove around Cwmbran before parking near the canal in Pontnewydd.

From there, he said, Price would have been able to see the three friends enjoying a drink with others in the beer garden of the Cross Keys pub.

Price decided to drive back to his parents' house at the same time as the group made their way up Five Locks Road for a barbecue.

But as some of the group crossed the junction with Meadowbrook Avenue,

Mr Murphy said, they heard "an almighty thump" and saw Mr Gibbings' body flying through the air above a 4x4.

Martin Connop and Emma Proctor were also seen to be lying in the road.

One eyewitness described how Price mounted the kerb, "ploughed into them and knocked them down like skittles", he said.

"The scene was utter carnage, and neighbours and road users flooded out to help."

Mr Murphy said: "The defendant drove to his father's home, put the car back in the garage, went into the house and spoke to his father saying: 'I'm very sorry I've had a slight bump'."

He said that Price's father noticed blood on one of his son's hands and went to check the vehicle.

When he asked his son what had happened, Price replied: "It was either him or me".

He said Price told his father: "He's been outside the house all week with a gun with laser sights. He was going to kill me."

His father immediately called the police and, when detectives arrived,

Price told them it had been "a moment of madness".

He later told officers: "I just didn't think. I don't know what happened, I just swerved towards him."

The court heard Price had had two run-ins with Mr Connop in the past, the first time when they were just 15.

Mr Murphy said Price had allowed "something from the past to build into a wholly misplaced delusional belief."

Patrick Harrington, QC, defending, said Price had asked him to "express his most sincere apology and condolences" to the victims' families.

Mr Harrington said he he did not "remotely" criticise a doctor who had seen Price in February this year and had assessed him not to be a danger.

Judge John Griffith-Williams, the Recorder of Cardiff, ordered Price be detained in hospital under the provisions of the Mental Health Act.

He said Price would for the foreseeable future remain "a very dangerous young man" and would be detained at the secure Ashworth Hospital in Liverpool.

Price will not be released without leave of the Home Secretary who would act on the advice of a mental health tribunal.