Stafford murder trial defendant is 'no angel', jury is told
A jury has started its deliberations in the trial of a man accused of strangling a Stafford woman who was found decomposed in his accommodation.
Rebecca Simkin, aged 31, was found beneath an upturned sofa in Wayne Bond's Newport Road bedsit in Stafford on July 29 last year. Bond, aged 44, is standing trial charged with murdering her between July 24 and 26.
In her closing speech on Tuesday, defence barrister Rebecca Wade KC told members of the jury to put their personal feelings to one side, to weigh up the evidence for themselves and follow the legal directions given by trial judge Kristina Montgomery KC.
Miss Wade said: "Wayne Bond is no angel. We know this from the type of language he used in his police interview and from the way he left Rebecca Simkin in his flat, which casts him in a bad light."
"There is no smokescreen from me to say otherwise."
