Lee McKnight murder: Woman saw three men 'beating man on floor'

A woman has told a court she saw three men beating a man and heard his cries of pain from her flat across the road.

Six people are accused of murdering Lee McKnight, 26, whose body was found in the River Caldew in Carlisle.

Carlisle Crown Court heard how the woman saw a man on a floor being hit with force and someone appearing to mop up afterwards.

Four men, including a father and son, along with a mother and daughter, all from Carlisle, deny murder.

They are:

The trial was previously told that Mr McKnight was savagely beaten over a drug debt after being "lured" to a house in Charles Street.

His body was found in the river by a farmer on 24 July last year.

Giving evidence, the woman who lived across the road from mother-and-daughter defendants Carol and Coral Edgar in Charles Street said her boyfriend woke her at 02:00 to tell her "someone is getting a right hiding" across the road.

She said: "I could see from my bedroom window shadows of somebody hitting somebody, through their front door, through the glass.

"There was no light on in the living room. It looked like there was some kind of lamp or something on in the kitchen."

She said there were "three shadows" hitting someone just inside the front door, she said.

"How hard were they hitting?" prosecutor Tim Cray QC asked.

"I would say the best force that they could - putting their best force into it," she replied.

"What were they hitting with?" Mr Cray asked.

The neighbour said: "I couldn't tell you what it was because it was just shadows. I could see it was something kind of long in their hand."

She said the attack lasted about five minutes and recalled: "Some male was shouting 'ahh'. I heard it three times."

The three shadows behind the door were "men", she told jurors, adding: "I knew it wasn't Coral, because Coral is just small and petite. It was men's figures you could see."

She told the court that the "shadows" disappeared from behind the door and she heard music.

She said she then saw Carol Edgar arrive at the house in her Nissan Navara and be let in by her daughter.

She also told the hearing she saw Coral Edgar's "shadow" and it looked like she was mopping behind the door.

The trial continues.