IPSWICH: An alcoholic spent the last few days of his life lying on a sofa drinking eight cans of lager a day, a court has heard.

Forty-three-year-old Des Thorpe, who was allegedly murdered in August last year, was unable to get up to go to the toilet and was repeatedly sick in a bucket between drinks, Ipswich Crown Court was told.

During an interview with police after his arrest on suspicion of Mr Thorpe’s murder, Paul Clarke said he had gone to a flat in Limerick Close, Ipswich with Mr Thorpe shortly before his death and had helped care for him there.

In the interview which was read to the court he said that Mr Thorpe would gulp down cans of lager and was constantly being sick.

He said that during the last three or four days of his life Mr Thorpe had not moved off the sofa.

Clarke, 41, of Mountbatten Court, Ipswich and a 16-year-old girl who cannot be identified because of her age, have denied murdering Mr Thorpe, whose body was found in a flat in Limerick Close, on August 10 last year.

Clarke, the 16-year-old girl and John Grimwood, 28, of Canham Street, Ipswich, have denied murdering 43-year-old Rosalyn Hunt between August 1 and 10 last year.

The court has heard that Mrs Hunt’s body was found in her flat in Victoria Street.

Yesterday, “Pip” Wood said he had visited the flat in Limerick Close shortly before Mr Thorpe’s death and had seen him lying naked and drunk on a sofa.

He said he had noticed a number of bruises on Mr Thorpe’s body and swelling to one of his eyes.

Mr Wood said that while he was at the flat Clarke mentioned an incident involving a girl and said he was worried the police would accuse him of murder.

The trial continues today.