Injured dog walker's face was ‘black and blue', jogger tells murder trial

Independent

3 days ago

A jogger told a murder trial that the face of a dog walker found injured in Suffolk looked 'black and blue' and she was wearing a bra with no long-sleeved top despite a 'chill in the air'.
Mother-of-six Anita Rose, 57, was found injured by a cyclist in Brantham on July 24 last year and died four days later of traumatic head injuries.
Prosecutors allege that 56-year-old Roy Barclay, who had been 'on the run trying to avoid the police… and avoid being recalled back to prison', killed Ms Rose.
Martyn Nash, who had been out running on the day of the incident, said in a statement read by prosecutor Matthew Sorel-Cameron that he saw a woman lying on the floor.
He said that a man and a woman were there too, with the court previously told that cyclist Jerome Tassel found Ms Rose and dog walker Rachel Ireland was second on the scene.
Mr Nash said the man – Mr Tassel – was 'on the phone to the ambulance'.
He said of the woman lying on the floor, Ms Rose: 'I do not know if her arm was broken. She was moving her arm slightly.'
He continued: 'Her face was covered with blood and looked black and blue. She was breathing and making a croaking sound.'
He said he did not know her but 'I now know her name was Anita'.
'She was wearing a black bra but it didn't look like a sports bra,' said Mr Nash. 'She had no long-sleeved top on.
'At that time in the morning I thought it was unusual as there was a slight chill in the air.'
He said he told the man and woman who he did not know – Mr Tassel and Ms Ireland – that he would 'run back up to the top to flag down the ambulance'.
He said the woman said she would take Ms Rose's dog to the vets.
Jason Locke, who was also out running, said in a statement read by the prosecutor that the 'injured woman was lying with her head to the sewage works fence'.
'My initial thought was she had been in some kind of exercise accident,' he said. 'I thought perhaps she and the cyclist had collided.'
He said her left arm was 'in a bit of an odd position'.
'There was a brown spaniel sat by her feet which appeared calm,' he said.
Clare Fountain, a receptionist at the vets where Ms Ireland took Ms Rose's dog Bruce, said in a statement that she was told the dog had been with an injured woman.
She said Ms Ireland told her the 'lead was wrapped round the lady's legs and paramedics had to cut it'.
Barclay denies Ms Rose's murder.