A JURY yesterday heard of the history of alleged domestic abuse a woman suffered in the years leading up to her death last summer.

Carol Chambers was said to have been regularly beaten and left covered in bruises by her drunken partner, John Bickford.

Friends and relatives often saw 48-year-old Ms Chambers with injuries said to have been inflicted by Mr Bickford, a court heard.

Mr Bickford, 60, is on trial at Teesside Crown Court accused of Ms Chambers’ manslaughter on July 28 last year.

The jury has heard that he was barred from his local workingmen’s club in 2006 for attacking mother-of-three Ms Chambers.

Witnesses also told police that they, on occasions, saw Mr Bickford lash out and slap his partner around the head in the street.

Ms Chambers was taken unconscious to hospital from their home in West Auckland, County Durham, on July 26 last year. Two days later, her life-support machine was switched off when doctors ruled that bleeding on her brain was inoperable.

It is alleged that Mr Bickford attacked Ms Chambers some time on the Saturday following her return from Australia.

While visiting family in Perth, Ms Chambers struck up a relationship with a friend of her cousin’s, Martin Simmons.

Mr Simmons yesterday gave evidence via a live video-link to Australia, as did Ms Chambers’ aunt, Christine Close.

They both told the jury that on two trips to Australia last year, Ms Chambers arrived from the UK covered in bruises.

Mrs Close said her niece told her that Mr Bickford was to blame for the injuries, and she wanted to leave him.

She said by the time her stays with her family came to an end, Ms Chambers was free of her bruises and looked “wonderful”.

Mr Simmons described Ms Chambers as “very bubbly, happy and joyful” but said he was aware of the problems in her relationship.

He also told the jury of two menacing telephone calls said to have been made by Mr Bickford – before and after the death.

The first was made when Ms Chambers was staying in Australia, when the caller is alleged to have told Mr Simmons: “I’m going to kill you and kill Carol.”

Mr Simmons told the jury: “I said “who is this?” and I think he said he was Carol’s partner, or something like that.

“He said ‘I’m going to kill you, and tell Carol when she comes home I’m going to break both her arms and legs’, and then he hung up.”

In the second call, after Ms Chambers had died, Mr Simmons said the caller told him: “I’ve got Carol, and I’m coming over.”

Mr Bickford, formerly of Simpson Road, West Auckland, denies manslaughter and the trial will continue today.