A MOTHER-of-three has blamed her friend for an alleged murder bid which saw a Blackburn man bludgeoned repeatedly with a meat cleaver.

Rhea Parker, 23, has accepted she and Joanne McNally, 49, went around to the home of Philip Preece to get some money for the drug spice.

But giving evidence at Preston Crown Court Parker, who was effectively homeless at the time, insisted it was McNally who had taken the cleaver out of a bag, she had been carrying, and left Mr Preece with a fractured skull and bleeding profusely from several head wounds.

She told jurors they had gone around to the house because McNally told her that her ‘dad’ owed her £20 and they were going to collect it so they could buy spice.

And when Preece told her he had no money, swore at her, and asked her to leave, McNally went into another room, took the cleaver out of the bag she had handed her, and returned to start the attack, she said.

Parker added: “She just started hitting him on the head with the meat cleaver.”

Later she said she initially ‘froze’ when the violence began but tried to intervene at one point to prevent McNally inflicting more blows.

Cross-examined by John Jones QC, defending McNally, she denied that she had lost her temper, when Mr Preece swore at McNally, and had launched the attack herself.

He told jurors Parker felt “protective” towards McNally, as she had put a roof over her head temporarily and given her some clean clothes.

The court also heard that Parker was on bail at the time, on an allegation she had stabbed her former boyfriend with a broken bottle during an argument.

Mr Jones said in a psychiatric report, compiled at the time, Parker admitted she was prone to “uncontrollable outbursts of violence and anger”, linked to a number of personality disorders.

Parker said she had developed coping strategies which would have enabled her to walk away from flashpoints in future.

Questioned by her own counsel, Simon Csoka QC, she also denied, on her later arrest in Cash Converters in Blackburn, saying she was ‘going to prison because she had killed someone’.

In response to questions by prosecutor Gordon Cole QC, she said she had not tried to raise the alarm, when Mr Preece was left seriously injured, as she was scared of McNally.

Parker, of no fixed address, and McNally, of Whalley New Road, Blackburn, have each denied the attempted murder of Mr Preece on August 2 last year, and alternative charges of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

The trial continues.