A couple murdered a homeless woman and “callously” dumped her body in communal bins so they could spend her benefit payments, a court heard.
Birmingham Crown Court heard that the body of Lisa Bennett, who disappeared shortly after her 39th birthday in 2013, has never been recovered after it was incinerated at a community waste facility.
Kathleen Salmond, who is now “largely confined to a bed or a wheelchair”, and her boyfriend Kevin Flanagan are alleged to have murdered Bennett at their flat in Weirbrook Close, Weoley Castle, Birmingham, on or around May 9 2013.
A jury was told that the defendants “reaped the benefit of Lisa’s disappearance” after Salmond phoned the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), pretending to be Bennett, asking for her £230 benefit payments to be paid into her own account.
The prosecution says Flanagan used Bennett’s phone to text her mother “to make her believe that nothing had happened and Lisa was alive”.
The court heard the couple “calmly” told
police that Bennett was “alive and well” and had asked them to transfer her benefits into Salmond’s account.
The couple allegedly told officers that Bennett’s new boyfriend would collect it every week for her – a boyfriend the prosecution said did not exist.
The jury was told Bennett was a drug and alcohol addict, and was not seen again after collecting a prescribed substitute for heroin from a pharmacy.
Salmond, 40, of Farnhurst Road, Hodge Hill, Birmingham, and Flanagan, 39, of Redbrook Covert, Kings Norton, Birmingham, deny murder.
Salmond, who appeared by video link from a bed, also denies benefit fraud between May 8 and 31 2013, and preventing Bennett’s burial – charges which Flanagan has previously admitted.
Opening the case against the defendants on Wednesday, prosecutor Simon Denison QC said: “On Thursday May 9 2013, Lisa Bennett collected her daily Subutex prescription from the pharmacy in Selly Oak.
“She was never seen or heard from again by anyone who cared for her – her mother, who was in regular contact with her, her friends, support workers, her doctor, the pharmacy. She vanished.
“The two defendants reaped the benefit of Lisa’s disappearance by withdrawing Lisa’s benefit money from Kathleen Salmond’s bank account and spending it for themselves.
“When the police eventually came to question them about what had happened to Lisa, they each quite calmly said that she was alive and well – that she had asked them to transfer her benefits in Miss Salmond’s account and to withdraw it for her – and that her new boyfriend, who they called Ian, would collect it from them each week for Lisa.
“They were lying. Lisa Bennett was dead and her new boyfriend Ian didn’t exist.
“Lisa died in their flat on or around May 9 2013. Her body has never been found. She has no grave.
“The prosecution case is that the defendants murdered her, and then callously disposed of her body in the communal bins opposite their flat, where it lay undiscovered before the bins were emptied and the contents were taken to the council waste disposal facility a few days later.
“There, her body was incinerated with the community’s waste.
“The defendants then both pretended that she was alive so they could take her benefit money for themselves.
“Even after the benefit payments were stopped, they continued the pretence, the lies, that she was alive and that her money had been collected by a man called Ian.
“For years – years in which Lisa’s mother Janet, her father Jim and her sister Lindsay needed to know what happened to her – they kept up that pretence and those lies.”
The trial continues.Related... Man Accused Of Murdering Woman And Claiming Her Benefits Sometimes No-One Comes To A Homeless Person's Funeral - But Not Because No-One Cares Universal Credit Ads Claiming To Bust 'Myths' Banned By Watchdog If There's One Calendar You Need This December, It's A Reverse Advent Calendar – Here's Why