Accused son John Green referred to his late mum as "a dead piece of meat" - murder trial jury told

An ex detective accused of smothering his elderly mum to death told interviewing police officers: "My view is it's a dead piece of meat".
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John Green, 66, denies murdering his mother Bernadette, 88, and is on trial at Preston Crown Court.

His defence lawyer Michael Hayton QC quizzed him about the day the father-of-two says he found the pensioner dead in her bed after going back upstairs to check on her at their home in Inkerman Street, Preston.

He asked: "What did you do?"

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Green replied: "I composed myself, well initially I tried to wake her up. I held her face, just gently rocked her but her neck wouldn't move. I called 'Mum' a couple of times."

The court heard he rang 999 but did not attempt resuscitation, despite being advised to by operators

When asked why he said: "You couldn't do it - she was almost a statue. I couldn't have got her flat on the floor to start with.

"There's no way you could have laid her flat, or if I had tried to do some compressions I'd have broken every rib in her rib cage."

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Asked why he did not call a doctor in her final weeks, he said: "She didn't want it - no doctors, no nurses, nothing.

"She's my mum and she'd given me her instructions.

"She'd told me how she was going to leave this world in her bed, in her house, and nobody was going to stop that.

"It's respect, it's absolute respect - I've told you how my family worked - loyalty, duty. That was it."

Prosecuting Francis McEntee asked: "How is it showing respect to allow your mother to die rotting in her bed, covered in her own faeces?"

Green replied: " That's very emotive and very insulting."

Mr McEntee added: " She had rotting flesh, necrosis."

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Green said: "I didn't see that and I kept her as clean as I possibly could."

He referred to a text he had sent to his daughter a month before Mrs Green's death, referring to her a "stinking corpse", and asked: "Had you decided a month before your mother died that she was already dead to you?"

Green replied: "That is a really silly turn of phrase. No. I already knew she was dying."

(proceeding)