A hospital worker told a jury he saw a woman flopped motionless in the passenger footwell of a car hours before Samantha Warren was admitted to Bradford Royal Infirmary with a fatal head injury.

BRI portering team leader Scott Dalton said he took a wheelchair onto the hospital car park to help after being told about a man struggling to get a female to her feet.

But the car’s passenger door slammed shut as he approached and a man standing there told him: “It’s OK now, I’ve sorted it. She’s fine.”

Mr Dalton said the man was “on edge, frightened and quite abrupt.”

Santosh Kumar, 43, of Crosley Wood Road, Bingley, denies murdering Miss Warren, 33, of Libbey Street, Manningham, Bradford. He admits the manslaughter of the mother-of-three but says he did not intend to cause her really serious injury.

Prosecutor Paul Greaney QC alleges that “powerfully built” Kumar beat Miss Warren to death in a jealous rage.

He told the jury at Bradford Crown Court that the slightly built care worker suffered black eyes, broken bones and an unsurvivable head injury.

Mr Dalton said yesterday he leaned forward to look into the car after the man spoke to him.

“I could see what appeared to be a female laid face down on the car seat.”

He said the situation set “alarm bells ringing” with him. He noted the car number and called the police minutes later, at shortly after 6pm on April 26.

Cross-examined by Kumar’s barrister, Malcolm Swift QC, Mr Dalton said the woman was motionless and positioned as though she had been placed there.

“Her body was twisted and flopped over the front of the seat,” he said.

PC Robert Cowgill, of Bradford Central Police, said he went to Miss Warren’s home in response to Mr Dalton’s call. He repeatedly banged on the door, looked through the keyhole and shouted through the letterbox.

The Citroen car, seen in the hospital car park, was outside but no-one answered.

The jury has heard that paramedics called to the house by Kumar’s sister, shortly before 11pm, found Miss Warren unconscious. She died three days later.

The trial continues.