A WITCHCRAFT enthusiast was stabbed and bludgeoned to death by three men while camping out on moorland above Todmorden, a court heard.

Brothers Nicholas Grundy, 22, and Daniel Delker, 23, teamed up with David Sandham, 24 to kill drifter James Bowman, Leeds Crown Court was told.

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

He had been in a relationship with Grundy's mother and the three men had teamed up to warn off Mr Bowman.

His body was found fully clothed by a hill walker in woods at Cornholme, close to a campfire on the moors near to a rock formation known as Black Wood near Todmorden, 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 out 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 told how Mr Bowman moved in with Mrs Payne after they met at a psychic fair through a shared interest in witchcraft.

He said: "He had a very keen interest in witchcraft.

"It was that connection he met Mrs Payne who had a similar interest. They had met at a psychic fair."

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

Proceeding