THE partner of a man allegedly killed in a punishment beating has told a murder trial how she initially lied to paramedics, claiming he was attacked in a churchyard.

Karen Nuttall continued to give evidence in the trial of five people accused of the murder of her partner, Ian Bendall.

Mr Bendall was allegedly assaulted on June 9 this year before he died in hospital four days later.

The court heard how following the assault, which is said to have taken place behind Century Mill in George Street, Farnworth, she found Mr Bendall slumped against the front door of her house in Tennyson Road, Farnworth.

An ambulance was called and Miss Nuttall told paramedics a group of men had jumped out of a car and assaulted him in the grounds of St James’ Church, Farnworth.

Giving evidence, Miss Nuttall said: “I told the ambulance that he had been jumped in the churchyard. That was a lie. There was no attack in the churchyard.”

The churchyard was subsequently cordoned off after his death.

Following the death of Mr Bendall, and when she was interviewed by police, Miss Nuttall started to tell officers a different version of events, based on what she had seen and heard and what Mr Bendall had told her.

She told the court she ‘didn’t want them to get away with it’.

The prosecution case is that Mr Bendall was at a property in Masefield Drive, Farnworth, when a group of people came and bundled him into a car and he was then driven to the area behind the mill, where he was ‘brutally’ assaulted.

Mr Bendall was a recovering drug addict who had recently been dealing drugs for one of the defendants, Alex Colgan, and the court previously heard how he had ‘let Colgan down’.

Colgan also known as Smith, aged 28, William Coughlan, aged 25 and Kathryn Colgan, aged 24, all of Ramsay Avenue, Farnworth, as well as Ellis Hampson, aged 19 of Oakfield Avenue, Little Hulton, and a 16-year-old boy all deny the murder of Mr Bendall.

Miss Nuttall told the court how following Mr Bendall’s death, she told her father that Colgan was one of the ones responsible, alongside Hampson.

She also told the court how the 16-year-old boy visited her on June 9 looking for Mr Bendall before putting her on the phone to someone she believed to be Colgan.

Miss Nuttall said she was surprised because Hampson had visited her the night before and she had told him Mr Bendall had not been staying there for a while.

Miss Nuttall has now finished giving evidence and the trial will continue on Monday.