Attempts made to ‘cut off’ victim’s leg
HARROWING evidence was heard by a murder trial jury revealing Lindsay Birbeck’s body was found with severe injuries - including lacerations to her right leg.
A Home Office pathologist said attempts were made to ‘cut off’ her leg after she died and ‘significant force’ was used to fracture her neck.
Dr Naomi Carter said in her 25 years experience she had ‘never seen such extensive crushing damage to an entire larynx’.
She also told the jury that she could not rule out any sexual activity or the possibility that Lindsay had been ‘smothered’ due to the levels of decomposition.
A 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is standing trial at Preston Crown Court accused of murdering teaching assistant Lindsay in woodland before using a wheelie bin to bury her naked body in Accrington Cemetery.
The mum-of-two was found in a shallow ‘makeshift grave’ on August 24 last year - 12 days after being reported missing by her worried family.
The teenager has admitted hiding and moving Lindsay’s body using a wheelie bin before burying her in the cemetery.
However he told police that he played no role in the teaching assistant’s death and was offered “a lot of money” by an unknown man to “get rid of the body”.
He denies a single charge of murder.
Dr Carter said a 16cm laceration to Lindsay’s right leg could have been made using a saw as there was evidence of ‘teeth marks’.
She said there was ‘gross disruption of the deep neck structures’ but it was ‘unclear if strangulation had occurred’.
The jury was told that it was ‘unusually severe for simple compression of the neck’ for strangulation to be the ‘only explanation’.
Dr Carter said: “It suggests to me some sort of severe compressive force directed at the neck, either through stamping or kicking or kneeling on the front of the neck.
“I have never seen compression with this sort of damage to the neck in 25 years.”
Dr Carter said there were ‘no stab wounds or incision wounds’ on Lindsay’s body and that it was ‘very difficult to see if there was any bruising’ because of the level of decomposition.
Under cross examination from defence barrister Mark Fenhalls QC, Dr
Carter said she could not confirm that dark patches on Lindsay’s arms were self defence injuries due to the levels of decomposition.
Dr Carter said she could also not date any possible bruising on Lindsay’s neck. The jury was told that it could have happened ‘moments before death or days before death’.
Dr Carter said the neck injuries were caused by ‘severe compressive force’ but couldn’t be more definitive.
The jury were also read a statement from dog walker Morgan Parkinson who found Lindsay’s body on the evening of August 24.
Mr Parkinson said his dog had run into the wooded area at Accrington Cemetery and he shouted for her to come back ‘three or four times’ but she didn’t come out.
He said: “She had her head down in the bushes and was sniffing something. She was not paying attention to me when I shouted her name.
“I walked further forward and stood on something soft and squishy. I immediately jumped back and grabbed my dog by the collar. I then smelt a horrible smell and it smelt rotten. I could see plastic and what looked like a leg.”
Mr Parkinson said he called the police on 101 at 7.23pm to report the finding but ‘couldn’t get through’.
When his partner Sarah arrived at the scene he called 999 at 7.42pm.
The jury were told that PC Robyn Say attended the cemetery at around 8pm and was led to the area by Mr Parkinson.
In her statement, she said: “What I saw was a shallow ditch with a mound of soil in the middle. It looked artificially obscured using undergrowth.
“There was a section that had been disturbed by Mr Parkinson’s dog.
“Under this was plastic and I could see what looked like pale skin.”
On Friday afternoon the jury were told about DNA recovered from the wheelie bin used to move her body and a pair of gloves found near her grave.
A forensic examination of the bin was carried out by Helen Jones and areas of ‘blood staining’ were found inside along with ‘dark hairs’.
DNA taken from a blood swab was ‘more than one billion times more likely to have originated from Lindsay Birbeck than from another individual unrelated to her’, the court heard.
A pair of gloves recovered from the cemetery also matched the defendant’s DNA on the inner surfaces, the jury was told.
Lindsay’s DNA was also found on hair and a blood ‘swab’ from the outer surface of the left hand glove.
A forensic scientist who attended Hillock Vale said he found a pair of ‘parallel lines on a concrete plinth’ near a wire fence that leads to the footpath.
The jury were told that these were ‘typical with tyre marks a distance of 52cm apart’ - the same distance between the wheels of the bin recovered from Accrington Cemetery.
Six ‘faint blue lines’ were also found near to the brick edge of the plinth and contained ‘ blue plastic fragments’.
The court heard that a sample of plastic fragment was examined and compared to the recovered bin in the cemetery. Both were ‘microscopically indistinguishable in terms of colour and appearance’.
Concluding his statement, he said: “The position of the six blue lines and the plastic fragments next to the edge of the plinths suggest that a blue wheelie bin was put onto its back before being lowered off the plinth to ground level which is a distance of around 34cm.
“Such an action tends to suggest that the bin and contents must have been too heavy to simply lower the bin straight off the plinth and onto the ground.”
Proceeding