By Samantha Jones-
The trial of a man who killed his wife four days after their wedding because she wanted a divorce has entered its second day of trial.
It is a gripping story of wild anger and a strange marriage to a woman who realised she made a mistake in marrying a man four days after saying ”I do”.
Cruel Thomas Nutt in a rage attacked his new wife when he heard she was about to turn his life upside down. He had left Dawn Walker’s dead body in a cupboard and gone to Skegness before acting out the ‘ghastly charade’ of looking for her saying she had disappeared, jurors heard
Nutt, 45, denies murdering Miss Walker but has admitted manslaughter.
Bradford Crown Court was told that Mr Nutt’s previous partner described him as a “Jekyll and Hyde character”.
Prosecutor Alistair MacDonald QC told the jury that Kimberley Allcock, who was in a relationship with Nutt for 10 years, had tried to warn Ms Walker about him.
Going through Ms Allcock’s account, the prosecutor said: “He could be very loving and pleasant but when he lost his temper, he would go mad.”
Mr MacDonald told the court Ms Allcock had said: “When that happened, he would become so focussed on his anger that nothing would get through to him and nothing would calm him down.”
Mr MacDonald said Ms Allcock had alleged a series of violent attacks Mr Nutt had made on her and how she said he was convicted of assaulting her in 2015.
He added: “Ms Allcock advised Dawn to be careful and Dawn responded the following day by saying that the defendant scared the hell out of her.”
Prosecutors say Mr Nutt killed Ms Walker within hours of their wedding, storing her body in a cupboard before breaking bones to fold it into a suitcase.
The jury heard that Mr Nutt had phoned police to report his new wife was missing on 31 October and that he appeared to start a search.
The court has seen CCTV footage of Mr Nutt wheeling a large suitcase out of the back of the couple’s West Yorkshire home and into nearby bushes, just as police arrived at his front door to discuss the missing person report.
The jury heard Mr Nutt later handed himself into police, telling officers his new wife had come at him “violently screaming” after they returned from a two-day, caravan honeymoon in a lay-by near Skegness.
But the prosecution said Mr Nutt went to Skegness alone, having killed his wife, leaving her body in the house.
Mr MacDonald said the defendant told police he had put his arm round Ms Walker’s neck when she came running at him on 30 October.
He added that, according to Mr Nutt’s account: “It all happened very quickly and her body went light on him and she fell down and may have struck her head on the concrete floor.
“He said that he had not strangled her in anger, he had done so in an attempt to restrain her.”
Alistair MacDonald QC, for the Crown, said: “It is often said that someone’s wedding day and the immediate period after that is one of the happiest times of their life.
“That was not the case with Dawn Nutt, nee Walker, whose body was found stuffed into a suitcase and dumped into some undergrowth in a field towards the back of Thomas Nutt’s house four days after she was married to this defendant.
“The wedding had taken place on October 27, 2021, and the discovery of the body in the suitcase was made on October 31.
“The last known sighting of her alive was in fact made by her maid of honour and that sighting was between 10.30 and 11pm on her wedding night.”
The police went to his home in Shirley Grove, Lightcliffe, to take missing person’s report.
He was ‘for all the world like a distraught husband of a new wife who had apparently disappeared without trace,’ Mr MacDonald said.
Nutt knew perfectly well that her body was in a cupboard at the marital home because he had killed her and put it there before stuffing it into a suitcase, breaking bones in order to achieve that objective, and wheeling her to a place at which he dumped her body, it is alleged.
Later that day he handed himself in at Halifax Police Station and was arrested for murder.
MacDonald alleged Nutt then shoved Dawn’s body into a suitcase and went on a two-day trip to Skegness, before disposing of the bag in a field at the back of his house.
Speaking to the jury, he said: “It is often said that someone’s wedding day and the immediate period after that is one of the happiest times of someone’s life.
“That was not the case with Dawn Nutt… because her body was found stuffed into a suitcase and dumped into some undergrowth in a field towards the back of this defendant’s house four days after she was married to him.
“It is the prosecution’s case that when he struck as he did, and strangled his wife to death, he intended, in delivering those injuries, to cause her at least really serious harm and that he is guilty of murder.”
The court heard that Nutt and Dawn were married on October 27 last year, but four days later, the groom phoned the police to let them know she had disappeared.
Mr MacDonald said: “The wedding had taken place on 27th October 2021, and the discovery of the body in the suitcase was made on October 31.
“The last sighting of her alive by friends or family, apart from this defendant, of course, was made by her maid of honour, and that sighting was between 10.30 pm and 11.00 pm on her wedding night.
“The defendant, in fact, telephoned the police to report her missing at 12.22 pm, just into the afternoon, on 31st October 2021.
“He told them that his new wife had left their house at about 09.30 am, to go and visit her daughter Keira at Wilkinson’s shop, in Brighouse, which was nearby, but she had never, in fact, turned up.
Mr MacDonald told the court it was true that Nutt had allegedly spent the morning going to shops in the local area and had appeared as a “distraught new husband”.
The prosecution alleges Nutt went around pretending to look for Dawn with her daughter, all the while knowing she was dead. The prosecutor claimed Nutt had, however, already murdered Dawn by this point, before stuffing her body into a suitcase and hiding it in a cupboard in their family home.
He said: “You will hear that Keira and he were in various shops making enquiries about the whereabouts of Mr Nutt’s new wife, for all the world like the distraught new husband of a new wife who had apparently disappeared without trace.
“The hard and stark reality, though, ladies and gentleman, is when he made those enquiries, with Dawn’s daughter and grandson, and when he made the call to the police telling them that she had disappeared, he knew perfectly well that her body was lying dead in a cupboard at the marital home.
“He knew she was there because he had killed her and he’d put her body there before stuffing it into a suitcase, breaking bones in order to achieve that objective before wheeling that suitcase to a place at which he dumped her body.”
Later the same day, Mr Macdonald said police received a tip off from a local solicitor that Nutt had confessed to killing Dawn and was handing himself in, jurors heard.
After arriving at the police station at 5.13 pm, he told officers that he had killed his wife when they returned from a two-day honeymoon to Skegness, Lincs, the court heard.
During his interview, MacDonald said Nutt had told police: “We got married on the 27th and went to Skegness in a layby for two days.
“We came back and she has got bipolar and is depressed. She said she wanted to get divorced.
“She put me in jail before, said I had tried raping and assaulting her. Said she was going to do it again.
“She started screaming, and I have hit her in the face and put my arm round her neck.”
Nutt had admitted to manslaughter, but the prosecution did not accept this plea or what he had told police.
Mr Macdonald told the court Nutt allegedly killed his wife before he left for a two-day vacation and claimed he had intended to kill her – and was therefore guilty of murder.
He said: “It is our case, though not crucial to proving the allegation of murder, that she never went to Skegness but he did. He killed her before he left to go there.
“And we say that she lay dead in their matrimonial home whilst he was away in Skegness and before that ghastly charade was acted out when he returned, pretending to Dawn’s daughter that her mother was still alive and acting his way round the shops of Brighouse in an attempt to make it look as though he was conducting a genuine search for her, before dumping her body in the field.”
Mr MacDonald said that Miss Walker never went to Skegness. She lay dead in the matrimonial home while he was away and before the ‘ghastly charade’ was acted out when he looked round the shops in Brighouse for her.
Shane Barkham, a neighbour, said the couple’s relationship was troubled. He heard regular arguments between them. He had never observed Nutt being violent but he appeared possessive and controlling.
Before the wedding, Nutt told him he was taking Miss Walker to a layby outside Skegness in a caravan for their honeymoon.
The jury was shown CCTV footage of the couple’s wedding day. Miss Walker wore a bright red bridal gown for the ceremony at the Register Office in Brighouse on the afternoon of October 27. The celebration continued at the town’s Prince Albert pub.
Witnesses described the pub celebration, with about 20 people present, as a happy event with Miss Walker in good spirits.
The couple left by taxi at about 10.20pm with ‘kisses all round after a very pleasant day.