Dawn Walker murder trial: Husband who put wife’s body in suitcase will not give trial evidence

The body of grandmother Dawn Walker, 52, was found in a field four days after she married Thomas Nutt, 45, Bradford Crown Court has been told.

She had not been seen since her wedding night on October 27 2021.

Nutt, of Shirley Grove, Lightcliffe, near Halifax, West Yorkshire, denies murder but has admitted the manslaughter of Ms Walker.

On Thursday, Stephen Wood QC, defending, told the jury that Nutt will not be giving evidence.

The trial has heard how Nutt told police he killed Ms Walker as he tried to restrain her, when his new wife came at him “violently screaming” after they returned from a two-day caravan honeymoon in a lay-by near Skegness.

But prosecutors have said Ms Walker was already dead when Nutt went to Skegness by himself.

They told the jury Nutt killed her on their wedding night or the day after, keeping her body in a kitchen cupboard before putting it in the suitcase.

Jurors have been shown CCTV footage of Nutt wheeling a large suitcase out of the back of his house and into nearby bushes just as a police officer arrives at his front door to follow up the defendant’s missing person report.

Prosecutor Alistair MacDonald QC has told the court that Nutt rang police on October 31, telling them his wife had gone missing, and he appeared to mount a search in what the prosecutor said was a “ghastly charade”.

Mr MacDonald said Nutt then handed himself in to a police station.

He told the jury that Nutt admitted the manslaughter of his wife on the basis that “he did not intend to cause her really serious harm at the time at which he killed her”.

Judge Jonathan Rose adjourned the trial until Friday at 10.30am.