The jury in the trial of Thomas Nutt who is accused of murdering his new bride before dumping her body in a suitcase has retired to begin considering its verdict.

Nutt, 46, of Shirley Grove, Lightcliffe, denies murdering Dawn Walker but has admitted her manslaughter.

The scrap metal dealer is alleged to have left her dead body in a cupboard and gone to Skegness on ‘honeymoon’ before acting out the ‘ghastly charade’ of looking for her, say-ing she had disappeared.

Shortly after 10am today, Judge Jonathan Rose sent the jurors out to begin their delib-erations at Bradford Crown Court.

The panel, down to 11, was advised to appoint a foreman or woman to make sure that all voices are heard and all relevant points covered.

The jurors have seen CCTV footage of Nutt wheeling Miss Walker’s body in a suitcase down the garden before ‘chucking’ it over the fence and concealing it in bushes just as the police arrived at the house to investigate her disappearance.

Opening the trial for the Crown two weeks’ ago, Alistair MacDonald QC said: “It is often said that someone’s wedding day and the immediate period after that is one of the happiest times of their life.

“That was not the case with Dawn Nutt, nee Walker, whose body was found stuffed into a suitcase and dumped into some undergrowth in a field towards the back of Thomas Nutt’s house four days after she was married to this defendant.

“The wedding had taken place on October 27, 2021, and the discovery of the body in the suitcase was made on October 31.

“The last known sighting of her alive was in fact made by her maid of honour and that sighting was between 10.30 and 11pm on her wedding night.”

Mr MacDonald said Nutt phoned the police to report his new wife missing on October 31, saying she had left to visit her daughter in Brighouse and hadn’t turned up there.

The police went to his home to take missing person’s report.

Mr MacDonald said Nutt knew perfectly well that her body was in a cupboard at the marital home because he had killed her and put it there before stuffing it into a suit-case, breaking bones in order to achieve that objective, and wheeling her to a place at which he dumped her body.

Later that day he handed himself in at Halifax Police Station and was arrested for mur-der.

He stated that Miss Walker, 52, had got bipolar and was depressed. Two days after the wedding she told him she wanted a divorce. She started screaming and he hit her in the face and put his arm round her neck.

Mr MacDonald alleged that Miss Walker never went to Skegness. She lay dead in the matrimonial home while he was away and before the ‘ghastly charade’ was acted out when he looked round the shops in Brighouse for her.

The jury was shown CCTV footage of the couple’s wedding day. Miss Walker wore a bright red bridal gown for the ceremony at the Register Office in Halifax on the after-noon of October 27. The celebration continued at the Prince Albert pub in Brighouse.

Witnesses described the pub celebration, with about 20 people present, as a happy event with Miss Walker in good spirits.

The couple left by taxi at about 10.20pm with ‘kisses all round after a very pleasant event.’ Miss Walker’s body was discovered in the suitcase on the afternoon of October 31. She was half-naked and appeared to have been folded in half.

The post-mortem examination revealed that she had suffered significant neck injuries. There had been a forceful application of pressure.

She had deep bruising to both sides of her head, a left black eye with lacerations, deep bruising to her jaw and a fractured nasal bone and eye socket.

In addition to these injuries there were fractures of the left tibia and fibula and four broken ribs, probably caused after death to get her body into the suitcase.

Forensic pathologist, Dr Kirsten Hope, said Miss Walker died from significant pressure on her neck consistent with Nutt’s assertion that he struck her in the face and then put his arm around her neck.

The trial continues.