A MAN was "punched, kicked or stamped" to death with 150 blows by a neighbour in a dispute over a leather jacket, a court has heard.

In the early hours of the morning a passing motorist saw smoke coming from the front bedroom of the house in Clarence Street, Darwen, and when they attended the fire brigade made a "grisly" discovery after putting out the blaze, Liverpool Crown Court was told.

They found the body of David Spencer, 41, who lived at the house, said Mr Martin Steiger QC, prosecuting.

A post mortem examination showed he had been beaten to death and had the marks of something like 150 blows to his head and body, no fewer than 40 to his face and head.

"In the opinion of the pathologist Mr Spencer had been either punched, kicked or stamped upon repeatedly in what must have been a violent and frenzied attack," he said.

It was also discovered that Mr Spencer, who had no soot in his lungs, had died before the fire had been started on the settee without using petrol or other accelerants. In the dock is Daniel Holden, 33, of Clarence Street, Darwen, who denies the murder of Mr Spencer in the early hours of Friday, March 8 last year.

In the course of house to house inquiries police spoke to Holden at lunchtime that day. He told them he was a former acquaintance of Mr Spencer's but had never visited his house.

Holden told police that he had been out drinking that night in pubs and a club and got home at 2.30am, about three hours before the fire was discovered, said Mr Steiger.

The police found out that Mr Spencer appeared to have stolen a leather jacket belonging to Holden about two or three weeks earlier, and it was stolen again on the day before the killing, he said.

"They also discovered that the defendant suspected that the person responsible for stealing the jacket for the second time was the deceased," he said.

The police went back to see Holden about four hours after they first spoke to him and noticed that he had washed some clothes in his washing machine, including a wax-type Barbour jacket, he said. "Holden told the police he washed his Barbour jacket because it had tomato ketchup on it. The prosecution say it wasn't tomato ketchup on that jacket but the blood of David Spencer whom he had killed in a frenzy because he rightly or wrongly believed David Spencer had for the second time stolen his valued leather jacket," claimed Mr Steiger.

Holden's training shoes were examined and their sole pattern matched footprints found in blood on an envelope and a newspaper in the room where Mr Spencer died. They also matched footprints found on the back door to the premises, he said.

At about 10.30pm on the night of the murder, a next-door neighbour also heard a violent incident which was the first of two visits Holden made to Mr Spencer's home.

He was was violent and threatening, he alleged.

After beating Mr Spencer to death, Holden, in an attempt to destroy the evidence of his crime, set fire to the room where the body was.

He hoped, perhaps, to destroy it or the evidence of what he had done, Mr Steiger said.

Proceeding

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