A FATHER accused of murdering the mother of his children has admitted his leaving the country looked “suspicious”.

Joseph Davies is alleged to have fled from Farnworth after stabbing his long-term partner Kelly Davies to death.

The body of Ms Davies, a 31-year-old mother, was found two days after she was killed on June 2 last year.

Davies, aged 36, giving evidence, said: “It looks suspicious, yes I accept that.

“I could have got a lot further away if I wanted to if that's what I was trying to and I would have avoided being seen on CCTV.”

He was questioned yesterday at Manchester Crown Court by prosecutor Peter Wright about why he spent £750 on transport out of England then ended up sleeping on a park bench in The Hague.

Judge Sir David Clarke asked if he could understand why spending £500 on a taxi made it appear that he was “pretty anxious to get away”. Davies, of no fixed address, who wore a tracksuit jacket and jogging bottoms, said: “I thought about that but what people don't know about me is how I do things. I don't think that far ahead, I just think do that and something else will happen. I have never worried about money — I have always lived from day-to-day, hand-to-mouth.”

He was asked why he did not question how or when Ms Davies died when he wrote a letter in The Netherlands to friend, Vincent Walmsley.

Davies said a solicitor in the country had told him how she died and he did not want to put “assumptions into something as sensitive” as murder.

The jury heard Davies claim he was not aware that Ms Davies was seeing another man while he was in prison and had not read her text messages.

He said he accidentally took her phone from the flat in Queen Street, Farnworth, where her body was found.

Davies denies a charge of murder.

The case continues.