Couple ‘murdered woman, 39, and dumped body in incinerator bin before using ID to claim her benefits’
A COUPLE murdered a homeless woman and dumped her body in a bin so they could spend her benefits, a court heard today.
The body of Lisa Bennett, who disappeared shortly after her 39th birthday in May 2013, has never been recovered after it was incinerated at a community waste facility.
Kathleen Salmond, who is now "largely confined to a bed or a wheelchair” and her boyfriend Kevin Flanagan, are alleged to have murdered her at their flat in Birmingham.
Birmingham Crown Court was told the defendants "reaped the benefit of Lisa's disappearance" after Salmond phoned the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), pretending to be Miss Bennett.
The court heard he asked for her £230 benefit payments to be paid into her own account.
Flanagan allegedly used Miss Bennett's phone to text her mother "to make her believe that nothing had happened and Lisa was alive".
"LIED TO COPS"
The court heard the couple "calmly" told police that Miss Bennett was "alive and well" and had asked them to transfer her benefits into Salmond's account.
They allegedly told officers that Miss Bennett's new boyfriend would collect it every week for her - a boyfriend the prosecution said did not exist.
The jury heard Miss Bennett was a drug and alcohol addict, and was not seen again after collecting a prescribed substitute for heroin from a pharmacy.
The defendants then both pretended that she was alive so they could take her benefit money for themselves
Prosecutor Simon Denison QC
Salmond, 40, of Birmingham, and Flanagan, 39, of Birmingham, deny murder.
Salmond, who appeared by video link from a bed, also denies benefit fraud between May 8 and 31 2013, and preventing Miss Bennett's burial - charges which Flanagan has previously admitted.
Simon Denison QC, prosecuting, said: "She was never seen or heard from again by anyone who cared for her - her mother, who was in regular contact with her, her friends, support workers, her doctor, the pharmacy. She vanished.
BENEFIT SCAM
"The two defendants reaped the benefit of Lisa's disappearance by withdrawing Lisa's benefit money from Kathleen Salmond's bank account and spending it for themselves.
"When the police eventually came to question them about what had happened to Lisa, they each quite calmly said that she was alive and well - that she had asked them to transfer her benefits in Miss Salmond's account and to withdraw it for her - and that her new boyfriend, who they called Ian, would collect it from them each week for Lisa.
"They were lying. Lisa Bennett was dead and her new boyfriend Ian didn't exist.
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"Lisa died in their flat on or around May 9 2013. Her body has never been found. She has no grave.
"The prosecution case is that the defendants murdered her, and then callously disposed of her body in the communal bins opposite their flat, where it lay undiscovered before the bins were emptied and the contents were taken to the council waste disposal facility a few days later.”
"There, her body was incinerated with the community's waste.
"The defendants then both pretended that she was alive so they could take her benefit money for themselves."
The trial continues.