AN alleged torture victim was held a prisoner in his last few days so neighbours could not see the multitude of wounds that had been inflicted upon him, a court was told.

Andrew Gardner, 35, is said to have suffered “countless”

beatings in the weeks leading up to his death at the house he shared with his girlfriend, her brother and her former lover.

It is alleged that Clare Nicholls, 28, Simon Nicholls, 24, and Steven Martin, 44, beat, burnt, whipped and cut Mr Gardner during a campaign of violence and humiliation.

A post-mortem examination revealed that the victim had more than 100 separate injuries – including 21 rib fractures – as well as bleeding on the brain and blood poisoning.

A jury at Teesside Crown Court was told that Mr Gardner was not seen by teachers at the school of his stepchildren or local shopkeepers for almost a month before he died last March.

Mr Martin told the jury that Miss Nicholls locked both doors and kept the keys in her handbag to stop her battered and bruised boyfriend leaving the house.

Under cross-examination from Paul Sloan, prosecuting, Miss Nicholls said she never prevented him leaving the home, and even encouraged him to go out, but he refused to.

Mr Sloan said: “I suggest the reason you stopped him going out was because by then he was always injured and you didn’t want outsiders to start asking questions, did you?”

During her second day in the witness box, Miss Nicholls yesterday accepted leaving Mr Gardner in “excruciating”

pain with beatings, but denied intending to cause him serious harm.

She agreed that he would have been “pretty well immobile”

for between three and ten days before he died, but said he had not shown signs of being in pain until near the end.

Asked what she intended with subsequent beatings, she replied: “I have got no words at this moment in time, but I know one thing – that I never, ever wanted that man to die.”

Answering the questions of Mr Sloan, Miss Nicholls admitted repeatedly lying about the extent of violence meted out to Mr Gardner, but insisted she was now telling the truth.

She admitted taking house rules to an extreme by insisting the adults asked permission to do anything, but said that was the way she had been raised and what shaped her character.

Appearing to sob almost throughout the cross-examination, Miss Nicholls denied trying to force Mr Gardner out of the house through violence and “utter humiliation”.

She was asked by Mr Sloan: “The reality is that you, Simon Nicholls and Steven Martin – all of you – used violence towards, and injured, Andrew before his death.”

She replied: “Yes, we all contributed and hit Andrew, yes . . . I would not say torturing.

I know Andrew was getting hurt and he was getting hit, but not torturing.”

Miss Nicholls, Mr Nicholls, and Mr Martin, all of Arthur Street, Chilton, County Durham, deny murdering Mr Gardner on March 13, last year.

The trial continues.