A VICE girl died after being subjected to a "savage beating" by a man who didn't like prostitutes working near his home, it was alleged.Darren Brown argued with 25-year-old Cara Martin-Brown before repeatedly kicking and stamping on her head while she lay helpless on the ground, Ipswich Crown Court heard yesterday Brown, who is no relation to Miss Martin-Brown, had then allegedly dragged her battered body across the town's Alderman Road into an alley and dumped it under some bushes, said Graham Parkins, QC, prosecuting.

A VICE girl died after being subjected to a "savage beating" by a man who didn't like prostitutes working near his home, it was alleged.

Darren Brown argued with 25-year-old Cara Martin-Brown before repeatedly kicking and stamping on her head while she lay helpless on the ground, Ipswich Crown Court heard yesterday

Brown, who is no relation to Miss Martin-Brown, had then allegedly dragged her battered body across the town's Alderman Road into an alley and dumped it under some bushes, said Graham Parkins, QC, prosecuting.

He had then walked the short distance to Ipswich police station and reported seeing a prostitute arguing with a man he described as her pimp. He said he had been in a fight with the pimp and that the prostitute was lying unconscious on a footpath.

"It was an attempt by the defendant to avoid suspicion falling on him. He was seeking to put himself in the position of an innocent passer-by when nothing was further from the truth," said Mr Parkins.

Miss Martin-Brown, of Hawthorn Drive, Ipswich, suffered a fractured skull and nose and other injuries to her head and body in the attack and died later the same day in hospital.

Brown, 22, of Alderman Road, Ipswich, has denied murdering Miss Martin-Brown on December 23 last year.

The court heard that Brown disliked prostitutes and had been seen shouting and swearing at them in the past.

He made his views on prostitutes plying their trade near his home clear to the first police officers on the scene saying "You guys (the police) don't do enough to get these girls off the street. My mother doesn't want to see this going on outside our door. Don't they realise this sort of stuff can happen to them?"

Mr Parkins said Miss Martin-Brown was a drug user who worked as a prostitute in the Alderman Road area to feed her habit.

"The nature of the attack and the ferocity of the beating should leave you in no doubt that the person responsible must have intended to hurt her or cause serious bodily injury," he told the jury.

Police officers who attended the scene found a white blood-stained fleece belonging to Miss Martin-Brown and a trail of blood across Alderman Road leading to the alleyway where her body was found.

Brown was taken to the scene of the attack and while there he lit a cigarette, threw it on the ground and trod on it.

"Brown was told he was contaminating a crime scene. His response to that was 'well, you know I've been here now'," said Mr Parkins.

Brown was then seen to spit on the ground as well. "Maybe he knew something about DNA," added Mr Parkins.

Brown had told police that he had been working as a security guard at the Millennium Dome that evening and had been dropped off in Handford Road at about 12.30am.

However, it was discovered that he had in fact been out drinking in Ipswich and had gone to Liquid nightclub in Cardinal Park before finishing up at the home of a friend's grandmother in Alderman Road.

When Brown left that house his friend saw him chatting to a woman and allegedly saw him hit her. "Her legs buckled and she fell to the ground with a thud," said Mr Parkins.

Shortly afterwards the friend saw Brown standing in the same place but this time there was no sign of the woman, although the cream coloured jacket she had been wearing was on the ground.

Home Office pathologist Michael Heath who carried out a post-mortem examination on Miss Martin-Brown's body said that injuries to her head, which led to her death, matched the pattern on the soles of a £165 pair of Prada shoes being worn by Brown. These shoes were not on sale in Ipswich.

An image scientist had studied a photograph of the sole of one of the shoes and a picture of the injuries to the right hand side of Miss Martin-Brown's head and found they "matched exactly".

Mr Parkins said that blood found on Brown's shoes and on his jeans matched Miss Martin-Brown's DNA and there was a billion to one chance that the blood was someone else's.

The court heard that a pink hair band, a pair of leather gloves, a pair of pink training shoes and a pink sock belonging to Miss Martin-Brown were found near the scene of the attack.

After his arrest on December 23, Brown was interviewed by police on several occasions and in the first two interviews he made no reply to questions put to him.

In another interview on Christmas Eve he admitted touching Miss Martin-Brown. "He said he saw her lying down, felt for a pulse and rested her head on the floor," said Mr Parkins.

Later the same day he added that after checking for her pulse he noticed he had blood on his left shoe.

Yesterday afternoon the jury, barristers and the trial judge visited the site of the attack and were shown by a police officer where Miss Martin-Brown's body, various items of her clothing and bloodstains were found.

The trial is expected to last a week and the first witnesses will be called today.