A murder trial jury heard how a 50-year-old dad pleaded with his attacker to stop when violence erupted in his Newsome flat.

Nicola Bedford, 30, who is accused of being involved in the murder of taxi office worker Martin Ackroyd, told Bradford Crown Court that she tried to prevent the attack, but was ordered out of the room by Surjit Singh Sidhu.

Bedford, a drug addict and prostitute, claimed that she was scared of 49-year-old Sidhu and as she crouched in the hallway of the property in Ashenhurst Rise she could hear Mr Ackroyd pleading with him.

“He sounded scared,” said Bedford.

“He just said please don’t...I won’t go to the police.”

Bedford said she went back into the living room when it went quiet and saw that Mr Ackroyd’s hands had been tied to the bed frame and Sidhu was pulling a piece of black cable tight around his victim’s neck.

“I tried to pull him off,” claimed Bedford.

“He told me to get the #### off him and get out.”

Bedford said she went back into the hallway, but returned to the room after she heard a rustling sound.

“There was a blue carrier bag...Sid was behind him now and he was pulling it across his face,” said Bedford.

She said the bag was pulled so tightly that she could see Mr Ackroyd’s face through it and there was blood in the bag.

“I just went back out of the room. I was scared. Something like that happening in front of me. I suppose I wimped out,” said Bedford.

She claimed that Sidhu was angry with his eyes popping and said he threatened her with the same thing.

Bedford said she couldn’t get out of the house because the front door was locked and her mobile phone was still in the living room.

When she went back into the room she said Mr Ackroyd was laid on the bed and Sidhu was sat on the settee smoking a cigarette.

“I asked him what he had done. He just said he’s dead,” said Bedford.

The jury heard that Sidhu then dragged Mr Ackroyd’s body off the bed, put it in the bath and covered it with clothes before the pair left the house.

Sidhu, of New Hey Road, Oakes, has already pleaded guilty to murder, but Bedford, of Blackers Court, Thornhill Lees, Dewsbury has denied murdering the father-of-three.

Bedford claimed that Sidhu had “kicked off” when Mr Ackroyd told him about a plan for the two of them to move away from the area.

Bedford said that in the hours after the killing she was “rattling” because of her drug addiction and she was asked why she hadn’t told police officers about the murder when Sidhu was detained for breaching his bail by being with her.

“I tried...I was thinking tell them what’s happened,” said Bedford.

“But how could you tell the police by the way he’s just killed someone. How do you do that? I wanted to badly, but I didn’t.”

The court heard that Bedford borrowed some money of Sidhu to get more drugs before he was taken into custody and she later sold his mobile phone to buy heroin and crack cocaine.

She eventually told her solicitor that Mr Ackroyd’s body was at his home and the police were alerted.

The trial continues.