THE man accused of murdering his new bride and dumping her body in a suitcase had already killed her when he said they had a lovely time on honeymoon, Bradford Crown Court heard today.

Thomas Nutt had left Dawn Walker’s body in a cupboard when he told the police they went together to Skegness and stayed for two days, it is alleged.

Nutt, 45, of Shirley Grove, Lightcliffe, denies murdering Miss Walker but has admitted her manslaughter.

Today, resuming his opening of the Crown’s case, leading prosecution counsel, Alistair MacDonald QC, said Nutt told the police he and his new wife had ‘a lovely time’ even though it was raining. They watched DVDs in the caravan in a layby, he said.

“If he had killed Dawn on the night of the wedding or the following day, and before he went to Skegness, he couldn’t possibly have thought that they had a happy time in the caravan at Skegness watching videos and spending their time in bed together,” Mr MacDonald stated.

Nutt said that Miss Walker had been in the passenger seat throughout the whole of the journey there and back.

Mr MacDonald said: “It is perfectly plain, say the prosecution, that the passenger seat is empty. You can clearly see from that (CCTV) footage the seat itself and its shape. No one is sitting in that seat.

“In addition, we have footage of the defendant before he set off, putting items into the front passenger seat where he says Dawn was to sit.

“The defendant was, say the prosecution, telling a pack of lies about when Dawn was killed. She was already dead by the time he was on his way to Skegness.”

Nutt told investigating officers he planned to celebrate Halloween with a gazebo in the garden kitted it out with scary things that lit up and police tape to make the front garden look like a graveyard.

The court has heard that the couple married on the afternoon of October 27 last year. Miss Walker’s body was discovered four days later in a suitcase in bushes near Nutt’s home.

Mr MacDonald has told the jury the last known sighting of her alive was by her maid of honour between 10.30pm and 11pm on her wedding night.

Nutt phoned the police to report his new wife missing on October 31 saying she had gone to visit her daughter in Brighouse and hadn’t turned up.

After handing himself in the same day, he told the police he wanted to shut Miss Walker up. She wanted a divorce and was screaming so he put his hand round her to try to stop her.

“Within a few seconds, it felt like a few seconds, her body just went limp and dropped out of my arms,” he said.

When her body dropped lifelessly he had ‘freaked and panicked and didn’t know what to do so he put her in a cupboard in the kitchen area.’

Nutt said he sat on the bed shaking. He was panicked, scared and in shock. He messaged her daughter pretending it was Dawn and arranging to meet her the next morning in Brighouse.

He then described in detail going round the shops, ringing hospitals and showing photographs to people asking if they had seen Dawn, the jury heard.

“Then he ran upstairs and got a roller suitcase from the wardrobe. He went to the downstairs cupboard and stuffed the body of Dawn, his new wife, into the suitcase. She had gone partially stiff by now and he said he had to bend her legs and didn’t know whether he had broken them in getting her body to fit in,” Mr MacDonald said.

Nutt said he had dragged her down the garden in the suitcase and that the wheels would have left marks.

“I had gone through the gate at the bottom of the garden where there’s a load of rubbish and I chucked the suitcase over,” he said.

The court heard that his route with the case took him down Nunlea Royd.

“He said that he had not strangled her in anger. He had done so in an attempt to restrain her and, as he did so, he was whispering to her in order to try and calm her down. He was telling her that he loved her and he had no intention at all of hurting or killing her,” Mr MacDonald said.

“If he has told a pack of lies about when it happened and is capable of making up a grotesque series of false and elaborate stories about her accompanying him to Skegness, watching DVDs, having a happy time in the caravan and so on, it shows that you cannot rely on a word of his account about how she met her death.”

Mr MacDonald continued: “He went to the considerable effort of packing her body into that suitcase, breaking one of her legs and some ribs in order to achieve what was no mean feat. He wheeled her down his garden and threw her over the fence before depositing her body in those bushes plainly in order to conceal it.”

He later sought to scuff away the wheel marks the suitcase had made in his back garden further to conceal his dumping of the body.

And throughout all this, he told a pack of lies and put on an acting performance of the baffled and distraught husband of a beloved and recently married wife who had just disappeared apparently without trace, Mr MacDonald said.

“When, all the time, he knew that she was dead, he knew full well where Dawn’s body was and that he had hit her forcefully to the face and throttled her.”

“All his actions were calculated to maintain the deception that she was still alive and had disappeared without trace or explanation.”

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