Man ‘murdered fostering ‘supermum’ after breaking into her home and then phoned Babestation from her phone as she lay dying’

A THIEF has been accused of murdering an elderly fostering ‘supermum’ by strangling her with a cable before phoning Babestation and setting fire to her house.

Gareth Dack, 33, is accused of killing widow Norma Bell, 79, at her home in Hartlepool before phoning the “soft-porn TV service” on her phone as she lay dying.

Mrs Bell and her late husband John had been fostering children since 1965 after responding to a notice she had seen.

During that time they had three children of their own, six foster children who they treated as their own, and more than 50 foster babies and toddlers.

The couple stopped fostering in the 1990s and despite her husband's death in 2010, the jury was told Mrs Bell was fit for her age and would go line dancing.

Dack was a childhood friend of Mrs Bell’s son, John, and Teeside Court heard today that he had no money and was borrowing cash from loan companies and friends after racking up debts with his partner and children.

Mrs Bell loaned him £10 just a week before and prosecutors told the court Dack was a drug user whose motivation for the alleged crime was money.

Dack allegedly inflicted 15 injuries on Mrs Bell in April last year, including several rib fractures and strangled her with an electrical cable while she was still alive.

Between midnight and 5am he allegedly used her landline to phone the sex chatline after killing her and stealing £700 in cash as well as her TV.

He allegedly left her house at 10pm to sell his associate Raymond McLoughlin the stolen TV for £60 before ransacking her home and returning at 1am to take cocaine and cannabis.

He then is accused of setting fire to her home deliberately.

When Mrs Bell's body was recovered by firefighters, it was noted that her trousers had been pulled down to below her knees and that her tights and underwear had been cut from the waist down to the area of the pubic bone, although there is no evidence she was sexually assaulted.

Mr Tehrani, prosecuting, said: "The fire officers entered the premises and found Norma Bell unconscious and on the floor in the rear reception room on the ground floor.

"Two fire officers carried Mrs Bell out of the house to an ambulance where she was found to be dead.

"It was noted that there was an electrical cable tightly applied to the neck."

After police seized his car, they found £405 in the glovebox.

Dack's DNA was found on the door handle of an interior door, on a spent match, on two mobile phones found in the kitchen, on the inside of Mrs Bell's handbag, on one of the knobs on the gas hob, on a briefcase in Mrs Bell's bedroom, on the ligature around her neck and on the waist band of her underpants.

Dack has denied one charge of murder and one charge of arson. The trial continues.

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