MURDER VICTIM ‘LEFT LIKE ELEPHANT MAN’
A murder victim suffered ferocious injuries that left him looking “like the elephant man” during a fatal attack at the hands of his own girlfriend and a neighbour, jurors have heard.
Mark Shaw was tied up, beaten, bitten, gagged, attacked with weapons and stabbed to death at his home in December last year.
The 29-year-old, who was described by a woman who knew him as a “really nice person ”, suffered aboutinjuries across his body in the “sustained” attack.
His body was found, still bound at the ankles, in a bedroom at his home.
Newcastle Crown Court heard Zoe Warren, who had been Mr Shaw’s girlfriend for “just a few days” but had known him previously due to a common association with the Washington area, confessed to her part in the killing to a new man she was a in a relationship with a few weeks later.
It is claimed she even bragged that she had “got away with murder” after the attack, jurors heard.
The 20- year-old, of Chip chase, Washington, Wear side, and Mr Shaw’s neighbour Keiran Adey, 19, of Queen Street, Grange Villa, Durham,are accused of carrying out the murder together, which they deny.
The court heard Mr Shaw suffered more than 80 injuries to his body, across his head, torso and limbs.
Prosecutor Nick Dry told the court: “There was evidence that he had been gripped by the jaw and a ligature applied to his neck in a manner that was life-threatening.
“He had been punched and or kicked multiple times, bitten three times and struck with a rod-shaped weapon up to six times.
“The evidence showed he had been forcibly restrained and possibly injected intravenously against his will.
“In addition, he had been stab bed twice in the back, one of those wounds being deeply penetrating and bringing about death as a result of blood loss.”
Warren also denies a charge of intimidation in relation to an angry letter she allegedly sent to the newman, who she “turned on” after he became a witness in the case.
Mr Dry told the court Warren had been living at Mr Shaw’ s house at the time of his death and Adey was a neighbour, with whom there had been some previous trouble.
The court heard on the evening before he was killed, Mr Shaw had taken heroin and Warren had administered first aid to him while she waited for paramedics, who revived him.
Mr Dry told jurors: “And yet, within a few hours, the care she had shown him gave way to cruel and callous involvement in the brutalby Keiran Adey, Warren confessing her part to am an with whom she began a relationship just a few weeks later.”
The court heard Adey had confessed to being part of the killing when attending homes of friends and acquaintances, with “bloodied hands” in the aftermath,.
Mr Dry said Adey had been “bragging about what they had done, without challenge from Zoe Warren”.
The court heard items used during the course of the killing, including a knife, were taken to a wooded area near Mr Shaw’s home and buried or burned.
Mr Dry said the killerscarried out an initial attack on Mr Shaw before leaving the house and returning to inflict “further, more serious violence” in the early hours of December 17.
Mr Dry said during one conversation after the killing, Adey told an acquaintance he and Warren had inflicted violence and added: “We’ve done what we’ve done and left him looking like the elephant man ”.
It is claimed Warren told another witness the violence flared because Mark had “spent her last ten pounds on heroin” and he had “grassed” on Keir an about a broken window.
Warren denies murder and intimidation.
Adey denies murder.
The trial continues