THE mother of a man facing a murder charge has told a jury that any discussions she had with her son about moving or burning a body were merely “fantasy.”

Tyron Charles, 29, was shot dead at a smallholding off Foster Park View, Denholme, on September 6 last year.

James Sutcliffe, also 29, is on trial at Bradford Crown Court accused of killing Mr Charles, but he claims that it was another man, Adrian Williams, who pulled the trigger and shot his friend.

Mr Charles’s body was hidden and buried in a bog off Nab Water Lane near Oxenhope, with police only discovering its location after secretly recording conversations in prison in which James Sutcliffe spoke of the crime to his parents – Kevin and Janet Sutcliffe, aged 60 and 62.

The court has heard that after Mr Charles was shot in a shipping container on the smallholding, James Sutcliffe agreed to hide the body, but said he did so acting “in fear” of Mr Williams.

In the lead-up to the shooting, he was being pursued by Mr Williams and Mr Charles for an £800 debt.

Janet Sutcliffe told the jury that she “couldn’t recall” much of the conversation she and her husband had with their son during visits to HMP Hull on October 9 and 10.

Nicholas Lumley QC, prosecuting, asked Janet Sutcliffe if she had known about what happened to Mr Charles prior to the first time she visited her son.

In response, she said: “No, I didn’t know he was dead and hidden away. I had no knowledge of James’s involvement.”

Told that during the conversation, she had said ‘is he in a bog though?’, she said: “I think I said it because he (James) had just said it seconds before. I was just repeating it.”

The court heard that during a conversation about James Sutcliffe hiding the body in a bog, Janet Sutcliffe said “they’ve got nowt else.”

When Mr Lumley suggested her comment was linked to the theory that if the body was disposed of there would be no evidence against her son, Janet Sutcliffe replied: “It does look that way, definitely. I’m not denying that, it is what it looks like.”

The jury were told that in other conversations, Janet Sutcliffe had answered: “Hallelujah, that’s what we were worried about” when told by her son he had burnt all the clothes he had been wearing on the day Mr Charles was killed.

They were also told that one conversation included talk of the defendant sending a letter to her son using a coded phrase to let him know if and when Mr Charles’s body had been successfully moved or destroyed.

Kevin and Janet Sutcliffe have told the court they drove on Nab Water Lane on October 11, the day the body was discovered, but said they were only using the road to try and get to Halifax to return a borrowed car.

Asked whether she or her husband had travelled to the scene the previous day to try and find the body, she replied: “No. We definitely didn’t go up there. The conversation was to make James think that if we could help him, we would help him. But it was never going to happen.”

Questioned by Mr Lumley about possible plans to retrieve and burn Mr Charles’s body, Janet Sutcliffe said: “It wasn’t going to happen with Kevin and I, never in a million years. It was just a fantasy conversation, for want of a better word for it.”

She said it was a “thousand pities” that police hadn’t bugged the car in which she and her husband travelled home in having visited their son in prison.

She said: “They would have known we had no intention of doing anything untoward, and how distraught we were.”

Describing what was said during the recorded conversations, Janet Sutcliffe told the court: “It was an act to keep James’s morale up.”

When Mr Lumley put it to her that it was a “pretty good act”, she replied: “Yeah, but like I said, nothing would have happened. A, it’d be morally wrong, and B, we couldn’t possibly physically have done it.”

When it was argued that she and her husband had agreed to do all they could to help their son, Janet Sutcliffe said: “No, we had a conversation with James to let him know we were still there for him. He was my baby.”

James Sutcliffe had earlier said that his parents hadn’t been involved in any plan to move or get rid of the body, saying: “They were just saying stuff to make me feel a bit better.”

James Sutcliffe denies a charge of murder. All three defendants, of Hill Crest Road, Denholme, deny a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The trial continues.