A MOTHER-of-four was stabbed to death and buried under a cellar floor where she lay undiscovered for eight years, a court heard today.

Frederick Lawlor, 54, murdered his partner Dorothy Carre, 56, who was originally from Bacup, with "extreme force", Manchester Crown Court was told.

After murdering his victim in the front bedroom of the Victorian terraced house they shared in Equitable Street, Rochdale, he bound her naked body at the ankles, wrapped her in a duvet and put her under the slabs in the cellar floor.

Lawlor then moved home and went on to claim he had never lived at the address and his partner had gone to live in Ireland.

Lawlor denies the murder of Mrs Carre between March 10 and June 30 1999.

Neil Flewitt QC, prosecuting, told the jury Mrs Carre, a divorcee, met the defendant in 1993 and by 1995 had lost contact with her family.

She was last seen alive by her GP on March 11, 1999, when she told her doctor she had split from her partner because he was violent towards her.

By 2001 her daughter Lynn Edwards reported her missing, but only "limited" inquiries were made by police.

But in January 2006, she again reported her mother as a missing person and police investigated more thoroughly.

Inquiries led them to Lawlor and the address it is alleged they shared in Equitable Street, the jury heard.

On March 12 this year, police inspected the property's brick-lined cellar and officers noticed two of the flagstones appeared to be disturbed.

They lifted the flagstones to discover a human skeleton wrapped in a duvet.

(Proceeding).