A man has admitted ‘panicking’ and dragging a woman’s naked body into his shed but denies murdering her.
Christopher Barlow told a jury he found Mariann Borocz dead in his kitchen after the pair returned to his home in Bolton when they met at a shop nearby.
The 62-year-old admitted he moved her body into a shed in his back garden and decided not to report her death to the police.
He told jurors he ‘made a bad mistake, a silly mistake’.
‘I regret it,’ Mr Barlow added.
Ms Borocz’s body was discovered almost 10 days later, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Giving evidence in his defence, Mr Barlow denied having any involvement in the death of 55-year-old Ms Borocz.
He denies murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter.
Mariann Borocz’s body was recovered from the shed in Mr Barlow’s garden on December 23
Christopher Barlow told a jury he found Mariann Borocz dead in his kitchen after the pair returned to his home in Bolton when they met at a shop nearby
Ms Borocz had been last seen along the Chorley Old Road in Bolton prior to her disappearance
Jurors have been told the pair, who had never met before, were in Marko’s convenience store on Chorley Old Road at about 9.30am on Saturday, December 14 last year.
Ms Borocz bought a can of cider, while Mr Barlow was seen buying pint cans of Stella lager.
Ms Borocz walked back with Mr Barlow to his home on nearby Pedder Street.
‘No general reason, just for company,’ Mr Barlow said, after his barrister Siobhan Grey KC asked why he had allowed her to enter his home.
Mr Barlow had previously said he planned on spending the day drinking up to 16 pint cans of Stella.
The defendant said he sat down in the living room, and Ms Borocz stood in the kitchen.
He offered her a seat but she didn’t respond, the jury heard.
Mr Barlow said he couldn’t see her from his seat, where he was drinking and listening to music.
The defendant said he didn’t see Ms Borocz for another 40 minutes.
‘She could have gone to the toilet for all I know,’ Mr Barlow added.
The defendant said he next saw her on the kitchen floor, sitting in an upright position with her ‘head slumped forward’.
Mr Barlow said that Ms Borocz was naked and that her clothes were at the bottom of the stairs.
He said that he was ‘shocked’ and ‘panicking’ and went over to her.
‘She must have been dead,’ Mr Barlow said.
‘Did you make any attempt to call 999?,’ Ms Grey asked.
‘No, I just panicked,’ he replied.
Asked why he panicked, the defendant replied: ‘One, I didn’t know what had happened, and two, I thought I would get in trouble. I was scared.
‘I just automatically thought I would be a suspect or something like that.’
Mr Barlow said that he went for a drive later on, because his head was ‘in bits’.
He said: ‘I was trying to focus and concentrate and I couldn’t. I should have reported and I didn’t, I’m sorry I didn’t.’
The court heard he went back to the shop and bought eight more cans of beer.
Mr Barlow said that later in the evening, he moved Ms Borocz’s body from the kitchen to the shed.
‘I had to drag her,’ he said.
Asked why he put her in the shed, Mr Barlow said: ‘I told you, because I panicked.
‘I realised I should have reported but I didn’t.
‘I made a bad mistake, a silly mistake, and I regret it.
‘My intention was to report it as soon as I got round to it, as soon as possible.
‘I didn’t intend to leave her there. My intention was to report it but I was just panicking.’
Mr Barlow said he didn’t know how Ms Borocz ‘became separated from her clothes’.
He admitted that he put her clothes in a bin in his garden.
‘I just panicked,’ Mr Barlow said.
‘I placed them in a bag and put them in the bin.’
Mr Barlow said that the next morning, he went for a drive to ‘clear [his] head’.
‘I tried and tried and tried, but the longer I put it off [reporting to the police] it was getting harder,’ he said.
The defendant said he returned to work on Monday, December 16.
He said the thought of Ms Borocz’s body being in his shed in the intervening days ‘was on my mind constantly’.
Police attended his home on December 21 and said they were investigating a woman who had gone missing.
Two days later, officers returned and arrested Mr Barlow on suspicion of assault. Ms Borocz’s body was discovered in the shed.
Jurors have heard that a pathologist determined there were three possible causes of Ms Borocz’s death.
Asphyxia, due to unexplained marks on her neck, hypothermia, as she was found naked in an outside shed, or deprivation of food and water.
Mr Barlow, of Pedder Street, Bolton, denies murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter.
The trial continues.
