THE body of Warminster man Daniel Doherty was left bloodied and battered after he suffered more than 40 blows with a knife and saucepan, Bristol Crown Court heard.

Scenes of crime officers described walls and ceilings covered in blood after 55 year-old Mr Doherty was attacked in the lounge of his ground-floor flat in Westleigh.

Christopher Clark QC gave a vivid description of the scene to the jury. He said: "There was a gaping wound in his skull. There was a void in the skull cavity and blood had been spread and splashed about on the floor, walls and settee."

Christopher Randall, 19, of Myrtle Avenue, Warminster, (pictured) denies murdering Mr Doherty, but has pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation. This plea is not accepted by the prosecution.

Mr Clark added: "The prosecution's case is that it was murder, a deliberate, brutal and inexcusable killing."

A murder investigation was launched on February 25 after police received a call from a distressed Randall just after midnight. He told them he had killed Mr Doherty.

The court was told, in a statement from Randall's mother, Hazel, that on the same night Randall had phoned her and said: "Mum you don't want to know, you will disown me. I have stabbed Daniel Doherty. You don't know, I had to, it was self-defence."

PC Neil Le Maire, of Warminster police, visited Randall's home and found him sitting in the kitchen wearing just socks and pants.

PC Le Maire read out Randall's confession, which he made on the way to Chippenham police station.

He said: "He (Doherty) had the knife to my throat. I just saw red. I think I stabbed him a million times. It was self-defence, he was trying to kill me.

"All I know is that Daniel Doherty got a knife to my throat in Three Horseshoes Mall. I took the knife off him, punched him in the face and stabbed him.

"He started on about Jack the Ripper and I just saw red when I got into his flat."

Jurors heard how Mr Doherty began the evening in the John Barleycorn pub, in Weymouth Street. Several witnesses saw him laughing and joking with Randall in the town centre.

Randall was seen by a witness walking back towards his house in the early hours of the Friday wearing blood-stained trousers. He told them that he had been in a fight with five men.

After arriving home, he confessed to the killing to his mother.

Mr Clark said Mr Doherty had suffered three types of wounds in the attack, including 20 blows with the saucepan, 20 cuts from a kitchen knife and defence fractures and cuts to his hands.