Chesterfield man accused of murdering pensioner said he found him dead in the toilet and panicked after cocaine-fuelled drinking session

Daniel Walsh is on trial at Derby Crown Court charged with murdering Graham Snell in June last year, before burying most of his remains in a badgers’ sett in isolated woods.

In the second day of cross-examination, on Tuesday, December 8, Walsh said that he had found Mr Snell “stiff and cold” in the house they were sharing in Marsden Street, Chesterfield, after a night of cocaine-fuelled drinking.

He said he decided to dismember him instead because he looked “out of it” and didn’t want the emergency services coming round.

The court had previously heard that Walsh, 30, had got access to Mr Snell’s bank details and opened an online account to steal money.

Prosecutor Peter Joyce QC told the court yesterday that Walsh had then set up telephone banking on Mr Snell’s account to access the cash while the pensioner was “bagged up in the cellar” - after he reported the defendant to the bank’s fraud team and the police.

Questioning Walsh, Mr Joyce said: “Was he livid with you? He was very, very upset with you. With you. He told the police, 'I'm having a problem with a man who comes and stays at my house uninvited. I have just found out that he's been taking money out of my account. Please can I see an officer.’ He had just come back to the house being told that an officer would come to the house at 9.30am the next day. And before that officer came, he was dead.

"I'll make it plain. I'm suggesting you are lying about finding him stiff and cold, because I'm suggesting that you killed him.

"You moved him downstairs because it would be easier to cut him up. You were hiding Graham Snell's corpse from the light of the world and you were about to start the gruesome business of chopping him up. Why didn't you talk yourself out of that?

"There's a man in urgent need of medical help and you thought about getting him help, but you talked yourself out of it after you saw yourself in the mirror. Daniel, you can't call an ambulance looking like that.

"If Graham Snell had died naturally, there is no earthly reason for you to cut him up and hide him away."

Walsh had purchased cocaine earlier that day and made endless phone calls to a drug dealer later that night, who eventually delivered more of the cocaine, the court heard.

Evidence given earlier in the trial stated that Mr Snell had traces of cocaine in hair samples taken from his head and pubic area, but these were in keeping with him having been exposed to the drug rather than him being an active user.

Walsh claimed in court that Mr Snell was a regular user of the drug and he had seen him take it “eight or nine times” in the past.

Walsh denies murder.

The trial continues.

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