A BRUTAL beating which left a 48-year-old man dying in the street may have been a revenge attack, it was revealed today.

Detectives launched a murder-style inquiry after Harold Johnson was discovered collapsed with massive head injuries in Walmsley Close, Church, on Wednesday night.

Today, neighbours shocked by the death on their doorstep said they were considering quitting the council estate.

Mr Johnson was found lying on the pavement outside the house he previously shared with his former girlfriend, Bernadette Mullan.

An hour earlier he had been involved in a fight at the nearby Commercial Hotel, in Blackburn Road.

Police have not ruled out the possibility that he was the victim of a revenge attack by a third party following his assault on Bernadette, last September, but are also examining several other possibilities.

Detective Inspector Steve Marston said: "That motive has been suggested to us and we are going to look into it along with other possibilities."

One resident, who did not want to be named, said: "I'm moving. It's a dump around here. It's like Beirut.

"There's a lot of vandalism and now this. You don't know what's going to happen."

The neighbour said Mr Johnson used to live in Walmsley Close with his girlfriend.

He added: "They had a falling out do last year. She ended up in hospital after falling off the porch roof.

"I thought he would have kept away from round here." Mr Johnson was jailed for two months after admitting common assault on his former partner. Burnley Crown Court heard how he had given Miss Mullan a "good hiding" outside the Queen's pub in Church.

More than 50 people have been interviewed by police, and officers were today continuing door-to-door inquiries in the Walmsley Close area. Mr Johnson, who worked as a roofer and odd-jobber lived with his son Jamie in a flat in Blackburn Road, Accrington.

A team of more than 30 police officers are involved in the investigation and neighbours in Walmsley Close today told of police raiding a house in the area last night. One man, who did not want to be named, said: "My son woke me at about 3.30am and said there were police going into a house up the road. He said there were women shouting and screaming.

"I'm not sure exactly which house it was, but one of the women who lives down there has been friends with Bernadette Mullen for years. We don't know if anyone was taken away."

Officers are tracing the 10 to 15 people believed to have been in the pub who may have witnessed the fight, at about 7pm on Wednesday.

Drinkers in the Commercial pub may hold vital clues in a major police inquiry for the second time in five years.

A rapist, later jailed for 20 years, is believed to have been drinking in the pub before he brutally attacked a housewife in November ,1993.

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