A HILL walker has described how he stumbled across the body of witchcraft enthusiast James Bowman while walking with his young son in the hills above Todmorden

Dean Crowther was taking Alex for their regular Sunday stroll in the woods when he made the gruesome find, Leeds Crown Court was told.

Mr Crowther, who lives in Todmorden, immediately called his wife on a mobile phone to tell her.

Rachel Crowther, a nurse, raced to the isolated scene close to a campfire on the moors near to a rock formation known as Black Wood, but Mr Bowman was already dead.

She said: " I went to check to see if the man was breathing. I couldn't see any signs so I checked his pulse, but I couldn't find it. He was cold and clammy and very pale and there were no signs of life."

The couple were giving evidence on the third day of the murder trial of brothers Nicholas Grundy, 22, and Daniel Delker, 23, who along with David Sandham, 24, allegedly teamed up to kill drifter James Bowman.

The jury was told Mr Bowman, 44, met a "very violent death".

A post mortem examination showed he had been stabbed several times. He had two chest wounds of around 12cms and another to the thigh of more than 16cms. He also received more than 20 blows to the head.

He had been in a relationship with Grundy's mother and the three men had teamed up to warn off Mr Bowman, it was alleged. His body was found fully clothed by Mr Crowther on September 15 last year.

He had been repeatedly stabbed and beaten with around 20 blows, probably from a rock or stone.

At the time of the incident, police said they knew very little about Mr Bowman. He had no family connections in the area and was thought to have lived in the Workington area of Cumbria and to have gone by the name of Stig.

In court Mr Bowman was described as a "kept man" and a "womaniser" who had been asked to leave Melanie Payne's home in Ernest Street, Cornholme.

The following night he decided to camp in the hills above Cornholme.

Meanwhile, Delker and Sandham travelled from their homes in Lancashire and met up with Grundy to carry out the murder of Mrs Payne's spurned lover, the jury was told. Opening the prosecution case on the first day of the trial, David Hatton QC said: "The warning off of James Bowman could not be more effective as in the event it consisted of killing him."

The jury was read a letter written by Grundy to his mother, who he lived with, describing how her relationship with Mr Bowman was upsetting him.

It said: "All this talk of Jamie (Mr Bowman) moving in when I move out is messing with my head an awful lot. Why do I have to be persecuted?"

Mr Hatton said Mr Bowman moved in with Mrs Payne after they met at a psychic fair through a shared interest in witchcraft.

Grundy Sandham, of The Croft, Cleveleys, near Blackpool, and Delker, of Shackleton Road, Freckleton, Kirkham, near Preston, all deny murder.

(Proceeding