A 79-year-old widow was strangled to death by a debt-ridden drug user who phoned “soft porn” chatlines while she lay dying before burning her house down, a court heard.
Norma Bell, a foster carer to more than 50 children, was throttled with an electrical cord so that her alleged killer could steal a new television and £700 in cash, jurors were told.
Gareth Dack, 33, is accused of murdering Bell before setting fire to her home to cover his tracks. He denies murder and arson.
On the first day of the trial at Teesside crown court, Christopher Tehrani QC, prosecuting, told the jury that Dack called the adult television station Babestation several times while his elderly victim lay dead or dying in her home in Hartlepool.
Dack, a childhood friend of one of her sons, was penniless and high on cocaine and cannabis when he strangled her to death on 3 April last year, the court heard. Only a week before the killing, the jury heard, Bell lent Dack £10 when he asked to borrow money because he was off work sick.
Tehrani told jurors that Bell’s badly beaten body was found on the ground floor of her burning home shortly after 8.20am on 3 April.
She had 15 injuries, including fractured ribs, and an electrical cord was wrapped tightly round her neck. Her trousers had been pulled down and her tights and underwear cut, the jury heard.
An unboxed 49in television, which Bell had been looking after for her grandson, was stolen from her home along with £700 in cash, the court heard.
The prosecution alleges that Dack stole the television and sold it to a friend for £60 before returning to Bell’s home with cocaine and cannabis.
He then called Babestation a number of times, the jury heard, including twice to speak to the adult performers on screen. A voice recognition expert later identified Dack’s voice from a recording of his calls, the court heard.
Detectives also found £405 in cash in the glove box of his car, the jury was told.
Tehrani said: “For a man who was not in work at the time, was selling a brand-new television for £60 and had been borrowing money from all-comers in the previous few weeks, you may wish to ask yourselves as you listen to the evidence where this money had come from.
“The prosecution say that there is a clear inference that this money is part of a total of £700 stolen from Norma Bell’s house.”
The court heard that Dack’s DNA was found on a used match on the kitchen floor, inside her handbag and on the ligature around her neck.
Bell’s mobile phone, which had an emergency button on the back, was found in the garage of Dack’s parents’ home on the same street as his victim, the court heard.
“A new boxed TV was stolen from Mrs Bell’s house and sold by Gareth Dack to another man at about 10pm on the evening of 2 April 2016,” Tehrani said. “The television has been recovered. Mr Dack’s fingerprints have been found on it.”
Bell, a widow since her husband John died in 2010, fostered more than 50 babies and toddlers before retiring in the 1990s, the court heard. She had three biological children plus six long-term foster children who were treated as their own, the jury was told.
More than a dozen of Bell’s friends and relatives packed the public gallery as the trial was opened, some weeping and others turning to stare at Dack in the glass-enclosed dock behind them.
Dack denies murder and arson. The trial continues.
