A MAN who denies murdering an Ipswich charity worker has been accused in court of telling an “appalling lie”.Robert McCarry faced cross-examination at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday by prosecution counsel Karim Khalil, QC.

A MAN who denies murdering an Ipswich charity worker has been accused in court of telling an “appalling lie”.

Robert McCarry faced cross-examination at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday by prosecution counsel Karim Khalil, QC.

He suggested that Nicola West, who worked at St Elizabeth Hospice, did not want to be strangled during sex with McCarry.

But McCarry said: “If she did not, she would have fought and I would have injuries.”

The defendant, who claims that Miss West encouraged him to press harder on her neck, also insisted that she did not show any signs of struggling before she died.

Mr Khalil said: “She did not show any signs of finding it difficult? She simply went from saying 'harder, harder, harder' to unconscious? There was no in between?

McCarry replied: “Yes”.

The prosecutor continued: “Once unconscious, if any of your story is true, she would have laid on the back seat not moving at all. I want you to just think about that. You carried on having sex with her did you?”

McCarry replied: “Only for a couple of minutes and then I realised that she was not breathing and I tried to help her.”

Mr Khalil then accused McCarry of telling an “appalling lie”.

McCarry, 37 of Vernon Street, Ipswich, and Paul Waters, 29, of Sandpiper Road, Ipswich, have denied murdering Miss West, 34, of Leather Bottle Hill, Little Blakenham, in February last year.

McCarry has denied raping Miss West in a car near the dry ski slope at Wherstead and Waters has denied attempting to rape Miss West and aiding and abetting McCarry to rape her.

Both men have denied perverting the course of justice after Miss West's death and McCarry has denied conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

McCarry had denied a further offence of raping Miss West on the night of her death but the jury have been directed to return a not guilty verdict on that charge because of insufficient evidence.

It has been alleged that Miss West, who grew up in Colchester, met McCarry in the Punch and Judy pub in Ipswich on February 8 last year and had sex with him in a flat in Vernon Street.

Later the same evening, McCarry and Miss West had been driven to an area near the dry ski slope at Wherstead by Waters where Waters allegedly tried to rape her and McCarry allegedly raped and strangled her.

The men had then driven around for two days with Miss West's body in the boot of Waters' Ford Fiesta before handing themselves into police.

Giving evidence, McCarry claimed that Miss West had encouraged him to strangle her during sex to heighten her pleasure and said he had been reluctant to contact the police or take her to a hospital after she died because he didn't think anyone would believe her death had been an accident.

He said that during the two days before he and Waters handed themselves into police they had driven to Exmoor and had considered burying her body there.

The trial continues.