A WOMAN showed no emotion when calling emergency services after a man was viciously beaten in a brutal attack, a court heard.

A witness has given evidence that a woman had “no sense of urgency” following a bloody assault on Michael Beckwith.

Mr Beckwith, 44, of Goodlake Close, Dovercourt, died in August last year after suffering 17 blows to his head and many more to his body in Barrack Lane, Dovercourt on July 31.

Rebecca Ryan, 22, of Hilltop Rise, Weeley, Joseph Smith, 18, of Canning Street, Harwich, and Scott Swift, 27, of Station Road, Dovercourt, are on trial accused of murder. All three deny the charges.

At Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday, bodycam footage was played showing an Essex Police officer attending Ryan’s 999 call to the scene where Mr Beckwith had been attacked.

Following the footage, Jillian Marven told the court how she and her husband had passed a distressed woman and a youth in a hooded sprinting away from the scene.

She said: “We were walking down Barrack Lane and just as we were crossing the entrance to a nursery we passed a distressed looking woman with a phone in her hand.

“Although she was trying to conceal it against her thigh, you could see it was lit up and working.

“Just as we’d passed, a young man wearing his hood up ran passed us, he was going fast and as though he’d been running for a while.

“Something about it felt odd, we thought the man was after the woman, so we turned back but couldn’t see him, though we saw the woman turn into a car park just behind us.

“Approaching her, she was on the phone stating her friend had been attacked, we asked where it happened and she led us to the pathway further along.

“While speaking to her, she seemed to have no emotional involvement or sense of urgency, she was just having a normal conversation when talking about it.

“She led us to where her friend was, we made him comfortable until the police arrived.

“It never felt right, and the scariest part was not knowing what we’d find down that pathway.”

Prosecutors say Ryan arranged to Smith and Swift to kill her ex-partner, Mr Beckwith.

  •  The trial continues.