Man, 49, murdered girlfriend and left her body in trailer, court told
A JEALOUS boyfriend strangled his partner after she got involved with another man before wrapping her naked body in plastic and leaving it in a trailer, a court heard.
Anthony James Bird even tried to help with the search for Tracy Kearns, his murder trial was told yesterday.
The 49-year-old admits killing the mother of his two children, but denies he murdered her.
Prosecutor Ian Unsworth QC, opening the case against Bird at Mold Crown Court, said: “The defendant wrapped her body in plastic and later removed her body from the house.”
Her body was left concealed under debris in a trailer close to the Sandy Cove club in Kinmel Bay, Conwy, the trial was told.
Mr Unsworth said the jury could be satisfied that her body would
have been moved and destroyed in some way and “she would have forever been regarded as a missing person”.
It was, he said, a cold and undignified end to a life cut short.
“It was a killing that was as contemptuous for her body as it was as ruthless in its execution,” he said.
Her family, friends, and the police searched for her and the defendant played along with them, he added.
Mr Unsworth said Bird told “lie after lie” and even sent a message to her phone.
He took part in various steps to try and find her, the prosecutor said – all at a time when he knew she was lying dead, wrapped up and concealed in the trailer, covered in debris.
There was no issue that the defendant was responsible for her death, he said.
“He now accepts that he caused her death,” said Mr Unsworth, who said he anticipated that he would claim that he had suffered a loss of control.
”We the prosecution say that you can be sure that the defendant did not suffer a loss of control.”
Mr Unsworth told the jury Bird was not out of control when he used severe force to squeeze the life out of his partner, when he concealed the body, and when he took deliberate steps to mislead the police, her family and friends.
The couple had been in a relationship for seven years and had two daughters. They both worked at the Sandy Cove Club but Mr Unsworth said that the relationship had deteriorated and Miss Kearns had started a relationship with another man, Andrew Jones.
The court heard that when Bird discovered the affair he and Mrs Kearns discussed it and the defendant accepted their relationship was over, maintaining he did not want them to argue.
On May 7 it was alleged that he had been waiting near her mother’s home in Llandudno when she and Mr Jones returned home from a weekend together in Blackpool.
He spoke to Mr Jones and asked them not to “rub his nose in it”, the court heard.
That night she met with Mr Jones at the club where she worked. CCTV footage of her leaving was played to the court.
Mr Unsworth said that they were the last images of her seen alive and the court heard it appeared she travelled to the Rhyl area and met with Mr Jones before returning home.
Messages sent to her phone the following day by Mr Jones went unread, the court heard, and Miss Kearns’ body was found in the trailer at the Sandy Cove Club, owned by Bird’s brother Philip, on May 11.
Following the discovery of her body, Mr Unsworth said, Bird “changed his account”, claiming his partner had charged at him with a pair of scissors and he held her right wrist with his left hand and squeezed her throat with his right hand “until she stopped moving”.
Bird said he removed her body from the house as their children slept.
“On a wider view the overall picture here, you may think, is of a cold and calculating killing carried out in a ruthless manner by a man who was from start to last, in control,” Mr Unsworth told the jury.
Bird, of Cader Avenue in Kinmel Bay, denies murder.
The trial, before Mr Justice Clive Lewis, is proceeding.