A woman has gone on trial accused of murdering a man in an Aberdeen high-rise flat.
Elizabeth Sweeney is facing a series of charges that allege she violently assaulted Neil Jolly, 51, before repeatedly striking him to the head and body with a kettle at a flat in Marischal Court.
She is additionally accused of trying to conceal the murder by washing Mr Jolly in a shower and covering his body with a duvet cover.
The charges further claim Sweeney, 36, then cleaned the kettle in an attempt to destroy evidence.
She denies all the charges against her – said to have been committed between June 22 and 26 2023 – and has lodged a special defence of self-defence.
On day one of the trial at the High Court in Aberdeen, the jury was played a phonecall during which Sweeney told police that she had woken up in the early hours to find Jolly raping her.
Jurors shown graphic police footage
Jurors were also shown gruesome body-worn footage of the moment police officers forced entry to Mr Jolly’s flat and found his body covered in blood under a bedsheet within the bathroom.
Officers at the scene also noted blood soaked into the hallway and living room carpet, bloody rags in the hallway and a tub filled with bloody rags in the living room of the flat in Marischal Court.
Police rushed to the scene after receiving the distressed telephone call from Sweeney. She claimed that she had been raped and “didn’t know if she had killed the guy or not”.
During the call, made at 1.19am on June 26, Sweeney pleaded with police to send an ambulance to Jolly’s flat but was unsure of the exact address.
“Can you please go and get him please,” she said, adding: “I didn’t stab him or anything, I just punched him a few times. I was raped and I battered him about the head.”
Sweeney then told police that she had assaulted Mr Jolly before leaving the flat and posting the keys back through the letterbox.
‘I don’t know if he’s alive or not’
Police attended at the telephone box on King Street where Sweeney had made the call and found her in a distressed state and in the company of another man.
Body-worn footage recorded by several officers shows Sweeney begging the police to arrest her, putting her arms out for them to apply handcuffs.
The officers instead ask a distressed Sweeney why she called the police.
“Because I got raped by somebody,” she said, adding: “I kept punching his head in. I don’t know if he’s alive or not. Please go and see if he’s okay, please!”
It was then that jurors were shown the footage of police officers entering Mr Jolly’s property and finding his body covered by a duvet cover and his upper body and head covered in blood.
The trial, before Judge Andrew Miller, continues.
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