A wife who was allegedly driven to suicide by her abusive husband turned down opportunities to escape to her friend’s home as a ‘safe haven’, a court has heard.
Tarryn Baird’s childhood friend Carina Silva told jurors she ‘kept offering’ her home as a safehouse for Ms Baird when she told her that she was being beaten and raped but that she always said no.
Ms Silva told Winchester Crown Court today that she feared Ms Baird’s life was in danger from her husband Christopher Trybus, who she thought was ‘strange and bizarre’.
Trybus, 43, is accused of being responsible for Ms Baird death’s because he subjected her to ‘extensive’ acts of manipulative behaviour and sexual violence.
Ms Baird hanged herself aged 34 at their home in Swindon, Wiltshire, on November 28, 2017.
Trybus is charged with manslaughter, controlling and coercive behaviour and two counts of rape in relation to Ms Baird.
Ms Silva yesterday told the court that Ms Baird was ‘scared’ of her husband and that he strangled her with a belt at one point while he raped her.
For the defence, Katy Thorne today asked Ms Silva if she ever thought Ms Baird’s life was in danger.
Tarryn Baird, 34, (pictured) hanged herself aged 34 at their home in Swindon, Wiltshire, on November 28, 2017
Pictured: Christopher Trybus leaving Winchester Crown Court with his current wife Bea Trybus
Ms Silva said: ‘There were times, and that’s why I kept offering my house as a safe haven.’
On whether she thought it was her place to raise concerns, Ms Silva said: ‘I didn’t know if it would be my place to go and physically remove her.’
In a statement she gave to police in 2021, Ms Silva said that Ms Baird had family difficulties as a child and would have periods in her life where she became more withdrawn which Ms Silva referred to as ‘slumps’.
Talking about Ms Baird’s relationship with Trybus in her statement, she said: ‘I recall whenever I saw Tarryn and Chris together it was Tarryn that appeared to be in control, she always seemed to make demands of him that he would act on almost instantly and if Tarryn wanted to do something, Chris would make sure it happened.
‘He appeared to dote on her and love her an awful lot.’
Ms Silva said today that she stood by this statement, but added: ‘Quite often, and I have mentioned it before, that I found him very strange and bizarre.
‘What she told me and the way I saw him when he was with her, he was on the outside he seemed nice to her, but what she was telling me was completely different.
‘Her version reminded me of how I felt around him.’
Ms Thorne said that Ms Silva told police in a statement in 2021 that Tarryn had ‘introduced’ a belt ‘for sex’ with Trybus.
Pictured: Michelle Baird, the mother of Tarryn Baird, outside Winchester Crown Court today
Ms Silva told the court today: ‘[The statement] was read back to me and I was a full-time Mum, I was at home with a baby at the time, so perhaps I missed the wording that she introduced it.
‘I don’t recall saying she introduced it.’
Ms Silva also explained why she didn’t initially tell police that Ms Baird had accused Trybus of rape, saying: ‘I was very uncertain because Tarryn would tell me, I would see the bruises, and then she would retract.
‘I didn’t want to put something in where I didn’t know the facts, I was told I had to give the facts.’
Ms Thorne asked Ms Silva why she didn’t tell the police that Ms Baird had told her Trybus had hit her.
Ms Silva said: ‘Why would I think her safety was in harm if she hadn’t told me something?
‘There’s a bigger picture to it.’
The court has previously heard that Trybus’s mother moved in with the couple for a few months in 2015.
Ms Silva said that the couple argued about his mother in February 2017.
Ms Baird told her Trybus’s mother, who wasn’t working, had ‘arrived without saying hello’ and ‘straight away started asking for money’.
The trial continues.
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