A POLICE officer told a jury he helped a woman with a head injury walk to a nearby ambulance after an assault which would later claim her life.

Mother-of-three Michelle Cooper, 40, suffered fatal injuries during an incident in Beach Way, Jaywick, in the early hours of April 23 last year.

A murder trial is underway at Chelmsford Crown Court.

Giving evidence from the witness box, PC Mark Stonebank said he was asked to go to Jaywick that evening.

He confirmed he first attended Beach Way at around 9.55pm and witnessed a dark Ford Mondeo with damage to its windows.

He returned to the police station, but received another call instructing him to go back to the same location.

He returned to the area outside the Post Office, in Beach Way, where he found two of his colleagues talking to a group of people.

He confirmed to the jury he had been given some information a woman had been knocked unconscious.

The officer said he was directed to a woman standing near the Post Office, who was holding her head with a tissue in her hand.

PC Stonebank said: “She was quiet on approach, holding her head, from what I recall there was a tissue or something she was holding.

“From speaking to her, she wasn’t overly forthcoming with what had happened, I would say quiet in her nature.

“I remember her recalling her name.”

He said her speech seemed “slightly slurred”, but he was unsure whether that was from the level of her injury or intoxication.

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He said he and another officer helped her to a nearby ambulance.

He told the jury he helped the woman to a nearby ambulance.

“Due to the level of injury, I didn’t want her to fall and further injury to be caused,” he said.

Under cross-examination by barrister Richard Christie QC, the witness denied he took the woman’s body weight at any stage while helping her.

He said: “It was assistance, I didn’t have to take her body weight when holding her, she could walk on her feet.

“By me holding the arm it was prevention, I didn’t want her to fall with a head injury and further that injury.”

Mr Christie said: “Can I suggest at one point in fact she says ‘Oh, I think I’m going to collapse’ and you then do have to support her at that stage, would you agree?”

The officer responded: “At no point did I have to take her full body weight or did she feel she was going to collapse.”

Ms Cooper, who worked as a gym instructor in Sudbury, was left unconscious following the attack and was pronounced dead at Colchester Hospital two days later.

Bobby Nethercott, 31, of Park Square East, Jaywick, Demi Cole, 21, of Beach Way, Jaywick, Charlie Whittaker, 24, of Bemerton Gardens, Kirby Cross, and Jordan Stanley, 20, of Masterman Road, London, each deny a joint charge of murder.

Nethercott, Whittaker and Stanley also deny two charges of assault causing actual bodily harm.

Nethercott denies two separate charges of assault causing actual bodily harm, while Cole has admitted assaulting Elise Cooper.

  • The trial continues.