A BOYFRIEND who claimed he strangled his lover during a sex game that went wrong left her body in the bedroom for 24 hours, a court heard.

But in a prison cell former army cadet Daniel Lancaster is said to have told two inmates he deliberately throttled Anna Banks because she had been cheating on him.

Lancaster had told police that he often choked Miss Banks during lovemaking and he never intended to do her any permanent damage, Manchester Crown Court was told.

The defendant, formerly of Centaur Court, off Hawley Street, Colne, admits manslaughter but denies Miss Banks’ murder, between December 20 and 22 last year.

Louise Blackwell QC, prosecuting, said paramedics were called to Centaur Court just after midnight on December 22 and found Lancaster watching televison in his flat and fiddling with his mobile phone.

He told them to go into the bedroom, where they found classroom assistant Miss Bank’s body under a duvet. There were marks around her throat and dried blood on her face.

Shortly afterwards when a police officer arrived, Lancaster, 25, said Miss Banks ‘liked it rough’ and he had been ‘in a daze’, waiting for her to wake up.

Arrested and interviewed about the death, he admitted strangling his girlfriend, while having sex, but insisted he had not mean to kill her.

But Mrs Blackwell said the couple’s relationship was ‘very obsessive’ and just a week before the death he had found she had received a call or a text message from a previous boyfriend.

And while on remand at Preston Prison, Lancaster allegedly told cellmate Joe Shepherd: ‘I knew she had been cheating but I didn’t say anything to her’.

He said he had slept with her and put his hands around he throat, squeezing until she stopped moving.

Miss Blackwell said he told Shepherd: “I knew she was dead when she coughed up blood.”

Lancaster is alleged to have also told his cellmate how he wished he had disposed of Miss Banks’ body, rather than calling for an ambulance.

The next day Lancaster spoke with another fellow prisoner, Ian Quinn, and had said he strangled his girlfriend until ‘she was not making any sound or moving’.

Mrs Blackwell added: “The prosecution say this is clear evidence of what Daniel Lancaster had in his mind at the time he strangled Anna Banks.”

Earlier the court heard that Lancaster swapped a series of text messages with his friend Christopher Peers Holland, after his girlfriend had died.

In early exchanges, around 5.30am on December 20, Lancaster tells Holland how the couple were both ‘proper ill’.

But by 8.50pm that same day Lancaster’s messages had become more anxious: ‘Ring me if you can. It’s urgent’.

Lancaster and Holland exchanged more messages, with the latter becoming increasingly concerned about Miss Banks’ state of health.

Eventually just after midnight on December 22, Lancaster made a 999 call to the ambulance service, the court heard.

The couple each had flats at Centaur Court, a complex offering supported accommodation to people with health problems or learning difficulties.

Lancaster was first given a flat in December 2009, after being referred there by East Lancashire’s early intervention team,.

He was being treated for pyschosis, due to excessive use of cannabis, had alcohol problems and was also homeless at the time.

He was on a course of ketamine but had not taken his prescription for two days before Miss Banks’ death.

The court heard that Miss Banks had been living at the complex since January 2009. She had slight learning difficulties and had also been treated for an eating disorder.

The trial, expected to last a week, continues.

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