Student accused of pre-meditated murder staged normal evening after stabbing roommate 30 times

During a trial at Bristol Crown Court, prosecutors allege that Zack Coughlan, a 23-year-old robotics student at UWE Bristol, lay in wait for his housemate Jamie Collins, 21, and stabbed him 30 times in the garden of their shared house on Filton, South Gloucestershire, on April 8. Coughlan wore a mask, gloves and black clothing, then fled on Collins’s bicycle, later abandoning the bike at a nearby retail park and discarding his blood-stained clothes in a pond.

He returned to the house around 9 p.m., put a pizza in the oven and spent the evening playing online games with friends, later calling emergency services at 2 a.m. CCTV and phone-location evidence tied Coughlan to the scene, and his blood was found on the bicycle. Prosecutors argue the murder was a cold-blooded, pre-planned execution, rejecting the defence’s claim of loss of self-control. Coughlan now admits manslaughter, but denies murder, and the case continues.