An inquest has heard that a 23-year-old British woman who was shot dead in Texas had argued with her father about Donald Trump and gun ownership on the day of her death.

Lucy Harrison, from Warrington, Cheshire, was staying with her father, Kris Harrison, and his family at their home in Prosper, Texas, in January 2025. Ms Harrison, a fashion buyer for Boohoo, had travelled to the United States with her boyfriend, Sam Littler, and the couple were due to fly home to the UK on 10 January.

Giving evidence at Cheshire Coroner’s Court, Mr Littler said Ms Harrison often became upset when her father spoke about his gun ownership.

On the morning of the shooting, he said, she and her father had a “quite big argument” about Donald Trump and sexual assault allegations against him.The court heard that during the dispute, Ms Harrison asked her father how he would feel if she were sexually assaulted.

According to Mr Littler, he replied that he had two other daughters living with him and that it would not upset him “that much.” Ms Harrison then ran upstairs, visibly distressed.

Approximately 30 minutes before the couple were due to leave for the airport, Mr Littler said Kris Harrison took his daughter by the hand and led her into his ground-floor bedroom. Around 15 seconds later, he heard a loud bang.

“I remember running into the room and Lucy was lying on the floor near the entrance to the bathroom and Kris was just screaming, just sort of nonsense,” Mr Littler told the court.Kris Harrison did not attend the hearing but provided a statement through his representative, Ana Samuel.

In the statement, he said he and his daughter had been watching a news item about gun crime when he told her he owned a gun and asked if she wanted to see it.The pair went into the bedroom where he kept a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun in a bedside cabinet.

He said he had purchased the firearm a couple of years earlier to provide a “sense of security” for his family and denied previously discussing it with his daughter.

“As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang. I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell,” he said. He added that he could not recall whether his finger had been on the trigger.

The inquest heard that Mr Harrison had previously attended rehabilitation for alcohol addiction and acknowledged he had “briefly lapsed” on the day of his daughter’s death because he was emotional about her departure.

Evidence from police officer Luciana Escalera stated that she detected the smell of alcohol on his breath when attending the scene.CCTV footage shown to the court indicated that Mr Harrison had purchased two 500ml cartons of Chardonnay from a 7-Eleven store shortly before 13:00 CST that day.At the start of proceedings, Ms Samuel applied for coroner Jacqueline Devonish to recuse herself, arguing that the inquest had been conducted “in a manner more akin to a criminal investigation than a fact-finding inquiry.”

The application was opposed by Lois Norris, representing Ms Harrison’s mother, Jane Coates, who described it as an “ambush” and noted that Mr Harrison was the only other person in the room at the time of the shooting.The coroner refused the application.

In a statement issued through his solicitors, Kris Harrison said he “fully accepted” the consequences of his actions.“There isn’t a day I don’t feel the weight of that loss, a weight I will carry for the rest of my life,” he said.

Paying tribute to her daughter, Ms Coates described Lucy as a “real force of life.”“She cared. She was passionate about things. She loved to have debates about things that meant a lot to her,” she said.The inquest was adjourned until 11 February, when the coroner is expected to deliver her conclusions.