MAN DENIES ‘ALCOHOL FOR SEX’ MURDER
AMAN has gone on trial accused of the brutal murder of a pensioner whose house he had visited to exchange sexual favours for booze.
The badly beaten body of 67-yearold David Phillips was found in his flat on the evening of Valentine’s Day this year.
He had suffered “massive bluntforce trauma injuries”, including 27 rib fractures.
Thomas Carney, 28, has admitted the manslaughter of the pensioner – but denies his murder.
The first day of Carney’s trial at Swansea Crown Court heard the two men had met at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and were in “regular” phone contact in the days before Mr Phillips was killed.
On the evening of February 14 Carney took a taxi from his home in Morriston to Phillips’ flat in Cimla, with the Neath man picking up the £30 fare.
Patrick Harrington QC, for the prosecution, told the court that Carney had agreed to go to the property “in return for homosexual sexual favours”.
It is the Crown’s case that Carney left the Cimla flat, but after a short while returned in a “foul mood”, smashed his way into the property, and subjected the pensioner to a ferocious attack.
Mr Harrington said Carney repeatedly jumped and stamped on his victim’s head with both feet as he lay helpless on his back on the floor, then beat him with a wooden stool and a heavy music stereo.
The barrister said of Carney: “This rage was uncontrollable; the savagery was almost unbelievable.”
The court heard Mr Phillips suffered multiple and complex fractures to the bones in his face, had three teeth knocked out – which were found scattered around the room –
and suffered fractures to bones in his neck, spine, and chest, including 27 rib fractures both front and back.
The first police officer to arrive on the scene performed CPR on the pensioner, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The court heard the defendant was found was found hiding in a garden a few streets away from Mr Phillips’ Lime Grove home.
When arrested, he repeatedly told officers “he tried to rape me, he tried to rape me”.
While in custody at Swansea Central police station, Carney was examined by a doctor, and traces of Mr Phillips’ DNA were found on the front of his pants, and on his penis.
He again repeated the claims that Mr Phillips had tried to rape him, and he told the medic he had gone to the flat to perform sexual favours in return for alcohol.
The court heard he told the doctor: “I didn’t want to do it but I needed the alcohol.”
The prosecution barrister said 6ft 2in 18-stone Carney could easily have “swatted away” any unwanted sexual advances from the 5ft 8in tall pensioner.
The court heard the victim had previous convictions for paedophile offences.
Carney is an intravenous heroin user who also takes cocaine, amphetamine and cannabis and, by his own admission, drinks 60 units of alcohol a day.
Carney, of Llys Dur, Morriston, admits manslaughter but denies murder, and the trial – which is expected to last three weeks – continues.