Full story of how sick Melksham prankster was unmasked as attempted murderer

Edward Rudd, jailed for 11-and-a-half years yesterday for attempting to murder the woman, claimed he thought her cries were an act.

“I was trying to terrify her,” the dad-of-two said of his prank.

Jurors at Bristol Crown Court took less than two hours to find the 37-year-old guilty of attempted murder. His victim, girlfriend Cara Bryant, died of unrelated causes a few weeks after the man’s arrest

Over four days, the 12 men and women of the jury heard how Rudd had played a series of bullying pranks on his girlfriend. They included previously putting a bag over her head and waking her up in the middle of the night.

Edward Rudd outside Bristol Crown Court

A few weeks before his terrifying prank on December 11 last year the house had come under attack from others. As a result, Rudd and Ms Bryant had kept the doors and windows shut and taped a bag over the letterbox.

He said they’d developed cabin fever. The day before his attack, on December 10, he videoed an argument the couple had had. Later that day Ms Bryant asked him to leave the house, which she had done before, although Rudd said it had been too late to contact his mum to ask if he could stay with her so he spent the night in the back bedroom.

He woke up in the early hours of the morning and decided to creep naked into his girlfriend’s bedroom then shone his phone’s torch on the woman’s face. He played a mash-up video he had made of the argument they had had the day before.

She didn’t scream and shout her objections but instead responded with what Rudd described as “snivelling”. “I felt a bit spurred on or encouraged,” he told jurors. He affected a high-pitched voice, based on Harry Potter nemesis Voldemort. The sound was captured on a video recording on Ms Bryant’s phone, although Rudd was unaware she was recording.

He claimed he’d gone downstairs to turn the electricity off. Prosecutors say Ms Bryant went to get some tobacco and told him to leave.

She returned upstairs first, then he came up with a plastic bag. He also let her dogs come upstairs, which they were not allowed to do except on every other Sunday.

He came back into her room and sat by the bed. “I then carried on, but this time I think making out I was possessed.” He claimed she had stolen a bottle of whisky from him.

Rudd began chanting nonsense words, based partly on Latin phrases. When she didn’t react he leapt on the bed and pushed the carrier bag over her head, a prank he had pulled once before on her. He heard her saying she couldn’t breathe but thought it to be an act.

READ MORE: Police react as Edward Rudd is caged

READ MORE: Prankster found guilty of attempted murder

He told jurors: “After a while I took the bag off from the top. I did feel some resistance, which I now believe to be Cara passing out or ripping it.” He denied stuffing the bag in her mouth, as she claimed.

Rudd added: “I had the bag over her head very loosely. It wasn’t tight or anything like that. It wasn’t tight around her neck.”

He held a pillow over her head. He said he had arched the pillow so it would not suffocate her. In the recording, an increasingly desperate Ms Bryant could be heard pleading with her boyfriend.

There came a point where Rudd said he felt he had gone too far, describing it as feeling like a hot-and-cold rush.

He repeated the phrase “I love you” and called Cara “babe”. He termed it “styling out”, defined as behaving confidently in order to manage an embarrassing situation.

Bristol Crown Court

Rudd was quizzed by his barrister Charles Row: “Now you are removed and out of that situation can you explain logically how things came to a head like that? What do you put it down to?”

He replied: “Boredom, cabin fever, our competitive natures towards each other.”

Police arrived at the house in Melksham within around 13 minutes of a 999 call from Ms Bryant. She had told the 999 call handler: "Please help me...He's trying to kill me." 

Told he was being arrested for attempted murder, Rudd shouted at officers: “Attempted murder? You can f*** right off.”

He lied during his police interview, claiming he had not put a bag over his partner’s head. “I believed if I had admitted to putting a bag over Cara’s head that I would be charged for what I had been arrested for. I knew I didn’t attempt to kill her. I just couldn’t see any other way out.”

READ MORE: 'Please help me, he's trying to kill me' victim pleaded with 999 call handler

READ MORE: DAY 3: Man on trial for attempted murder did not intend to kill her, he claims

He also lied to a police medical adviser, claiming he was a former Royal Marine and a member of the elite Special Boat Service.

Cross examining Rudd, prosecutor Rob Welling accused the man of being a bully who had snapped when he’d been asked to leave the house.

“This was an occasion where she was rejecting you. She’d had enough of you. That’s the truth,” he said.

“You can see that on the 10th she’d had her guts full of you. You were angry that another of your relationships were failing and you were going to make her pay, weren’t you?

“This was about you getting your own back on her.”

Edward Rudd's custody shot Picture: WILTSHIRE POLICE

He said Rudd knew his partner was an ill woman and vulnerable. “Cara knew you very well by December 11 she told the police ‘he’s trying to kill me’ and she was right.”

Mitigating after his client was found guilty of attempted murder yesterday afternoon, Mr Row said Rudd had experienced mental health difficulties in the past and would find prison more difficult than others. “He understands, of course, the court must pass a substantial sentence.”

Judge William Hart sentenced the defendant to 11 years and six months imprisonment. New rules mean he must serve at least two thirds of the sentence behind bars.