Defendant Anthony Bird told police that he placed his partner’s Tracy Kearn’s body in a children’s play house after he had killed her, a murder trial jury heard.

Forensic pathologist Dr Jonathan Medcalfe said in a briefing from police he was told that the defendant had said he strangled Tracy Kearns with his right hand and squeezed her neck while he kept hold of her right hand with his left.

He said that she had made “gagging and choking” noises.

“After he had killed her and undressed her and cut off her clothing, he indicated that he had put the body in the children’s playhouse,” the doctor said.

He then moved it to the trailer, which he believed happened on the Tuesday, in which she was later discovered.

The pathologist said the death of Tracy Kearns, a mother of two from Kinmel Bay, had been caused by manual strangulation.

Mold Crown Court has been told that on the morning of Saturday May 13 police examined the trailer found at the rear of The Sandy Cove Club at Kinmel Bay, where both Tracy Kearns and her partner, defendant Anthony Bird, worked.

There they discovered her body.

Dr Medcalf said that he examined the trailer at the North Wales Police headquarters at St Asaph.

Her naked body was wrapped in red thin fabric, a trampoline cover, which was then wrapped in a heavy black plastic sheet. Debris was piled on top.

Dr Medcalf carried out a post -mortem examination after he had received a police briefing.

He was initially told that the defendant had said in interview, after the body was discovered, that after Tracy Kearns returned home from work on Sunday May 7 they had a “heated discussion” and that at some point she had gone at him with a pair of scissors held in her right hand.

“I was informed that he had held her right wrist with his left hand, put his right hand around her throat and squeezed until she had stopped moving,” the pathologist explained.

He also apparently had indicated that he had straddled her after taking her down to the floor.

The defendant had not admitted to any other methods of assault, such as punching, and he had not given any indication of how long he had squeezed her neck.

Once she had stopped moving he had carried her out of the house and wrapped her up.

The pathologist said that in his opinion, Tracy Kearns’s death was caused by a fatal assault involving manual strangulation.

Given the extent of the trauma to the neck, the degree of force involved was severe.

The multiple bruises around the mouth were highly suspicious of heavy pressure around the external airways.

Smothering therefore could have played a role in the death, but the severe damage to the neck structures in conjunction with florid conjunctival petechial haemorrhages easily accounted for the death in isolation, he said.

Dr Medcalf said that the numerous bruising to the body was not explained by the defendant’s account to the police of simply holding her right hand while he strangled her.

There were a large number of injuries and their pattern was clear evidence of a more sustained struggle and assault, he said.

Defendant Anthony James Bird, 48, denies the murder of Tracy Kearns, 43, at the home they shared in Cader Avenue in Kinmel Bay, between May 7 and May 11 but accepts that he was responsible for her death.

Proceeding.