A woman was found dead having suffered multiple serious injuries at the flat of her on/off partner where she had been staying, a court heard today (Tue Oct 22).

Ambulance personnel found Melissa Eastick, 36, suffering extensive bruising and swelling to her body and face upon arrival at Stephen Todd’s rented flat, above retail premises in Stockton Terrace, Grangetown, Sunderland, at 7.15am on Tuesday October 17, last year.

But Newcastle Crown Court was told she was, “cold to the touch” and upon examination it was obvious she was dead.

A murder trial jury was told Todd had rung 999 shortly after 7am that morning, saying he was unable to wake up his partner.

(Image: Northumbria Police) Peter Glenser KC, prosecuting, said Todd told the call handler Ms Eastick wasn’t breathing and as he was talked through giving her CPR, an ambulance was dispatched.

Mr Glenser said the ambulance arrived within six minutes and Todd showed a paramedic to a dark room, with no working light bulb, where Ms Eastick was lying.

Todd told the ambulance personnel he had last seen his partner at 7.30pm the previous evening, and she seemed, “alright yesterday.”

Mr Glenser said it was to emerge that was, “a lie”.

“There was no way Miss Eastick was ‘alright’ the previous evening, the day before.”

He said she was found with extensive bruising and swellings to her body and face, “and was cold to the touch.”

“When they examined her, it was obvious she was dead.”

Mr Glenser told the jury: “As you will hear, it appears her death was neither quick nor easy.”

He said she suffered up to 123 injuries, “a combination of severe bruises, abrasions and lacerations”, up to the time of her death.

Mr Glenser described Ms Eastick as, “a frail and volatile individual with a history of chronic alcoholic misuse.”

He told the jury: “In the days before her death she incurred a series of successive injuries which ended in the infliction of a brain injury which would have rendered her profoundly unconscious for some days before she died.”

(Image: The Northern Echo) Fractures were found to her ribs and vertebrae, and cigarette burns inflicted on her torso.

Mr Glenser said when he was told she had died, Todd told the ambulance personnel: "I'm going to get the f***ing blame for this."

He denied, however, having caused any of her injuries.

When interviewed he said Ms Eastick had arrived at his address on October 12 or 13.

“He said she had pre-existing physical injuries.”

Todd claimed she came from the address of a former partner who she was “sick of”

But Mr Glenser said she was not to leave again.

In a statement setting out his defence case, submitted in August, he said for the first time that Ms Eastick had fallen down the stairs while staying at his address, but did not lose consciousness, and was awake on the sofa at his house on the evening of October 16.

Mr Glenser said: “It is the prosecution case that Melissa Eastwick was repeatedly assaulted over a period of some days in the defendant’s flat.”

“We say he is responsible for her death and he meant to either kill her of cause her really serious harm and she died as a result of that.”

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Mr Glenser said much of the evidence is not in dispute, but it involved, “violent, shocking events.”

The 41-year-old defendant of Buttermere Street, Sunderland, denies the murder of Ms Eastick.

The trial, expected to last two weeks or more, continues tomorrow (Wed Oct 22).