This is Plymouth -- A JURY heard how an ex-partner of a woman accused of murder told police that he was responsible for the killing. Ian Gollop told police before his arrest: "Here's his keys, front and back door. Don't get her done for it. It was me that done it." Later, in the car on the way to Launceston police station, the jury heard how he told police: "I know what I have done. Why do you think she called you? No one rapes my missus and gets away with it." In a transcript of defendant Jacqueline Cooke's 999 call, she had earlier admitted to killing Keith Dance at his bedsit on Molesworth Road. Cooke, aged 30, of Victoria Place, Stoke, is on trial after denying the murder between March 9 and March 13 last year. The court heard this morning how she told the call handler: "I stabbed him [Mr Dance] basically. "He admitted that he raped me and said 'Oh whatever', so I stabbed him in the back of his head and in his throat as well." She admitted feeling guilty for having done it and so rang to alert ambulance staff to where his body was. Yesterday, the court heard how Cooke told Mr Dance "I want to do so many nasty things to you". Dance, aged 33, was heard telling her: "I had sex with you while you were asleep", Plymouth Crown Court was told. Cooke herself is later recorded telling Dance: "I want to do so many nasty things to you. I am not going to because I am not going to benefit." The jury has heard that weeks later Cooke called police saying she had killed Mr Dance in his bedsit in Stoke. His body was found in his room with about 70 injuries. Gollop, aged 51, has already pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Dance in his first-floor room in the shared house in Molesworth Road. Michael Fitton, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said the case was that Cooke joined Gollop in a "savage and prolonged attack" on Mr Dance. He asked the jury to consider whether she was taking her revenge for the alleged rape. The jury was read a long series of agreed facts which outlined the rape complaint. Cooke told police in a statement that she had stayed the night at Dance's flat on January 31 last year. She added she was tired and drunk and slept alongside him in bed, but rebuffed his sexual advances. Cooke told officers she awoke the next morning "feeling that something was wrong". She added in the statement she confronted Mr Dance who admitted he had "sex with her while she was asleep". She said that he told her he was sorry. Cooke said she and Gollop had later secretly recorded Mr Dance on a mobile phone. The recording was handed to police, transcribed and read to the court. The jury was told that Mr Dance was arrested on suspicion of rape but claimed the sex was consensual. He was not charged but was on bail at the time of his murder. Cooke and Mr Dance had complained to police that Gollop had assaulted them with a knife hours before the alleged rape, the court was told. He was arrested and charged with common assault, which he denied, the court was told. Michael Fitton, opening the trial for the Crown Prosecution Service, said the trio were friends and drinking partners. He added Cooke dialled 999 two days after the attack and said she had stabbed Mr Dance in the back of the head and the throat. Mr Fitton added Cooke said in the call that she had confronted her friend about the rape – and that he had confessed. Cooke told ambulance controllers she had "lost the plot" and left him dead in the flat. Mr Fitton said she later told police in a prepared statement that it was her friend Gollop who had strangled and then stamped upon Mr Dance in the shared house. She said nothing about inflicting any injury herself. Mr Fitton said it was the prosecution case that Gollop and Cooke jointly assaulted Mr Dance with the intention of at least causing serious injury. He added: "If she had been a willing and active participant in a prolonged and savage attack, had she done that neutrally or with no intention to do anything in particular, or has she done it to take out her revenge?" Mr Fitton said Mr Dance suffered numerous shallow "neat" scratches to his torso. He told the jury: "We do not know whether it is a word or what it is. It is a collection of individual straight lines of relatively shallow depth." Mr Fitton said a pathologist had concluded that Mr Dance had suffered about 70 wounds including cuts and bruises, particularly over his head and torso. He added there was a ligature mark around his neck. Mr Fitton said all three had been drinking partners and Gollop had been living at Mr Dance's address. He added that Cooke and Mr Dance had made an allegation that Gollop had assaulted them on January 31, 2013. Mr Fitton said police arrested Gollop and then Cooke made an allegation that she had been raped by Mr Dance in his flat, again on January 31. He added police later interviewed Mr Dance, who said they had consensual sex. Mr Dance then complained Cooke had assaulted him in his flat, scratching his face with a knife on March 8. He told police he had returned home to find a knife in a Teddy bear. Mr Fitton said only two days later, on Sunday March 10, neighbours in the shared house heard loud noises coming from Mr Dance's flat. He added that Cooke called an ambulance the following Tuesday saying there was a dead body in the first-floor flat. Asked who was calling, Mr Fitton told controllers: "The person that killed him." She was transcribed telling the ambulance service: "He admitted that he had raped me. I stabbed him in the back of the head and the throat as well. "I did lose the plot, to be totally honest." But Mr Fitton said she said she felt "really guilty". Cooke said she had disposed of the knife she had used down a drain, the court heard. It has never been found. But she later said in a prepared statement given to police that Gollop had punched Mr Dance several times, strangled him with an electric cord and kicked him several times to the head. Mr Fitton said police broke down the locked door to find Mr Dance's dead body. Cooke and Gollop were arrested at The Rooms Hotel in Union Street. Mr Fitton told the jury they were not there to decide on the various allegations of assault and rape. But he said the rape allegation might help explain Cooke's "mindset" on the afternoon Mr Dance was killed. The jury will hear evidence from a Home Office pathologist this afternoon. The trial continues.
Reported by This is 13 hours ago.
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