Wife tells of last cuddle with husband 'kicked to death by yobs'

Helen Newlove, 44, said she was watching Midsomer Murders in bed when husband Garry came upstairs with a drink for her.

"He gave me a hug and told me he loved me and that he was looking forward to our holiday. We had a cuddle."

Mrs Newlove, a legal PA, said their 13-year-old daughter Amy had come in and jokingly told them: "Get a room."

Then, she said, "I heard a smashing noise and someone kicking a door. It sounded like broken glass. I could shouting and laughing and thought, here we go again, it's a Friday night."

A jury at Chester Crown Court heard that Amy then told her mother that yobs had been kicking Mrs Newlove's car and also damaging a digger which belonged to a neighbour.

Mrs Newlove said: "Garry looked up and I said, 'Can you check my car and Charlie's digger?' He ran out in his bare feet, he was wearing pyjamas." She said that her 18-year-old daughter Zoe's boyfriend Tom Sherrington was at the family's home in Warrington, Cheshire. She asked him to follow her husband and make sure he was all right.

"I heard Garry say, 'Do you think you are great?' I heard someone swearing, saying, 'Yeah, yeah, what are you going to do?'

"Then Amy came running in screaming, 'Phone an ambulance, Dad has been hurt'.

"My daughter was screaming. I told Amy not to be hysterical and it would be fine. Amy nearly fainted."

After calling the ambulance, said Mrs Newlove, she ran out to her husband, a 47-year-old sales manager. "I saw Garry on the floor. He had injuries to his head; it was swollen. He looked lifeless. Tom was knelt down. Zoe came towards me and grabbed hold of me.

"Seeing Garry like that not moving I went hysterical and started screaming. I lost the plot completely. A neighbour told me not to look at Garry, but everything would be okay.

"I thought, 'This can't be happening'. Zoe was trying to take control. She came up to me and said, 'Mum, he's going to be all right'.

"Tom was on the phone. I think he was saying, 'He has no pulse'. I went hysterical again and thought, 'Oh my God, this can't be happening. Please don't let this happen.' There was lots of commotion and screaming in the background. I felt sick."

The court has heard that seven or eight drunken teenagers kicked Mr Newlove's head "like a football" after he challenged them.

Mrs Newlove described seeing her husband in a coma in hospital afterwards, his face covered in blood. In a statement read out to court, she said: "Garry was a mess. His head was covered in blood and was very swollen. He had a neck collar.

"I told him I loved him and wanted him to come home. It was horrible, he had a trainer print mark in the centre of his forehead, it was a Vshape in blood. I could not see if it was a toe or a heel but it quite clearly was a foot mark from a trainer or a boot." Mr Newlove died two days later from bleeding to the brain owing to a torn artery in his neck, caused by the repeated kicking. He never regained consciousness.

One youth Adam Swellings, 18, denies murder but has admitted a lesser charge of manslaughter.

The other four, two aged 17, one aged 16 and his 15 year-old brother - none of whom can be named for legal reasons - all deny murder.

The case continues.