Robert Trigg trial: Son told 'to check on mother's dead body'

Robert Trigg denies manslaughter and murder

The son of a woman allegedly killed by her alcoholic partner has told a court how he sent him to check on the dead body of his mother.

Jordan McKenna, who was 14 at the time, told Lewes Crown Court that on 26 March 2006 he tried to wake Caroline Devlin, 35, who was cold and had turned blue.

He said Robert Trigg remained seated on the stairs of their Worthing home.

Mr Trigg, 52, denies the manslaughter of Ms Devlin, and the murder of Susan Nicholson, 52, in 2011.

Mr McKenna said Mr Trigg left him to get a neighbour to phone the emergency services.

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Jurors were told there were similarities between the cases of Caroline Devlin (left) and Susan Nicholson

The jury also heard that Ms Nicholson, a mother of two, had been living with Mr Trigg in her flat in Rowlands Road, Worthing, West Sussex, for two months before her death on 17 April 2011.

Her neighbour, Hannah Cooper, described their relationship as volatile and violent and said they regularly drank to excess, sometimes up to four times a week.

Ms Cooper said on the night that she died Ms Nicholson has been so drunk Mr Trigg had to help her walk to the shops to buy more vodka.

She told the court that he had phoned her on the morning of 17 April and told her that he thought Ms Nicholson was dead.

She asked him how he thought she had died and he replied: "She suffocated."

Ms Cooper said she phoned an ambulance as Mr Trigg had not done so.

The trial continues.