Couple ‘decapitated and dismembered friend before one boasted about eating him’ | E5F1J1D | 2024-04-12 11:08:01
Couple 'decapitated and dismembered friend before one boasted about eating him' | E5F1J1D | 2024-04-12 11:08:01
A person accused of murdering and dismembering the body of a good friend informed his girlfriend he would 'do it many times and again', a courtroom has heard.
Benjamin Atkins, 49, informed Debbie Pereira, 39, he would 'kill, decapitate, and eat the f******' if he's freed.
The pair, from Bournemouth, Dorset, are on trial for the murder of Simon Shotton.
The 48-year-old's legs have been discovered all rotted in packages on the Manor Steps Zig Zag footpath on Boscombe seafront in August 2023.
Atkins is alleged to have confided in his companion that if he 'informed his solicitor that if he admitted that he cooked Simon's head up and ate his cheeks, wouldn't it get me off the hook?'
Winchester Crown Courtroom heard that after the couple have been arrested, that they had been covertly recorded behind a police van bragging concerning the killing.
But both deny Mr Shotton's murder. Atkins and Pereira are additionally charged with preventing the lawful burial of a corpse and perverting the course of justice.
Paul Cavin KC, prosecuting, advised the jury that a member of the general public was taking shelter underneath a tree on the cliffside footpath when a package deal landed with a 'thud' beside her.
When she acquired nearer to the rotting-smelling packet which was wrapped with gray masking tape, she 'realised that the shape was that of a human foot and a few of it had develop into exposed'.
Police then found a second package deal that contained a second leg – DNA checks showed that they both belonged to Mr Shotton.
Mr Cavin stated that the dismembered legs have been examined by a pathologist who found 'that they had not been achieved surgically, that they had been removed mid-thigh, they hadn't been removed by a surgeon, this was an newbie's job'.
The courtroom heard the victim had been released from jail in September 2022 having served a sentence for supplying medicine within the Ipswich space.
It was then discovered that he had moved to Bournemouth after his launch and his mobile phone was traced to a Money Creators shop in Boscombe and that it had been bought to them by Pereira.
The prosecutor stated that when police raided the defendants' house handle, Atkins was seen hiding within the backyard behind a wheelbarrow.
Additional searches of the backyard then uncovered two black bin luggage containing Mr Shotton's severed arms.
In a police interview, Pereira advised detectives that Mr Shotton was a crack and heroin consumer and had visited their flat to take medicine with them.
She denied figuring out Mr Shotton had died but admitted that he had stayed in a tent in their garden.
She stated Atkins had been chopping wood and burning issues together with his own footwear within the hearth pit, and that he had also 'purchased giant black bin liners, bleach and silver tape'.
Mr Cavin stated that because the pair have been taken in a police van to a magistrates' courtroom listening to, they have been recorded on a hid listening system talking concerning the dismembered physique elements.
He stated that Pereira asked Atkins if he had hidden the legs, to which he laughed and replied: 'I went into the backyard to eliminate the f****** arms'.
Mr Cavin continued: 'Pereira asks Atkins "Do you remorse anything?"
'Chillingly, he responds "I'll look 'em straight within the eye and say, yeah. I'd do it many times and again. When you let me go at present, I'd find another one and do it once more."
'"Drug dealers, and pushers. Kill, decapitate, and eat the f******."
'Pereira advised Atkins that the police had taken "stuff from underneath my nails', and he responded, 'you'd have had nothing, the quantity of bleach you used".'
He continued: 'Pereira also stated in interview that she had asked Atkins "Did you kill him?" and that he had replied "Yeah".
'She also stated that he had been telling her that God had advised him to do it, which was not what the recording had captured."
He stated Pereira went on to say that Atkins and Mr Shotton had an argument concerning the deceased not having provided them with sufficient medicine for permitting him to stay at their residence.
The trial continues.
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