A YOUNG woman told today how she has been haunted by the horrific injuries suffered by the victim of a brutal attack.

Harold Johnson, a 48-year-old roofer, was found with severe head injuries outside the home of his ex-girlfriend Bernadette Mullen in Walmsley Close, Church, on Wednesday night. He died before paramedics reached him.

It is believed that Mr Johnson was struck with a pool cue in the Commercial Hotel, Blackburn Road, before making his way to the house.

The shaken resident, who lives in Walmsley Close and does not want to be named, said: "I saw a police car and ran over to see what was going on.

"I saw a body on the floor. It looked like someone had had a fight and been beaten up. "They turned him over and all his face was smashed in on one side. They told me to go away. I couldn't sleep that night."

Meanwhile violence has flared again on the troubled council estate where neighbours are considering moving out.

A pool of blood smeared the road outside another house in Walmsley Close following an unrelated disturbance in the early hours of yesterday.

Officers made the gruesoeme discovery while conducting house-to-house inquiries in connection with the death of Mr Johnson.

A police spokesman said it was a domestic incident and no complaint had been made to police.

Neighbours, none of whom was prepared to give their name, said they had been awakened at 4.30am by a number of Asian men shouting and arguing with a woman in the house.

One of the men had put his fist through a window and cut his wrist, they added.

Local residents remembered Mr Johnson as a man who was liked by some people, but had many enemies.

Last July, he was jailed at Burnley Crown Court for two months after admitting common assault on Bernadette Mullen outside the Queen's pub in Church.

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