A MAN accused of murdering his girlfriend doesn’t remember killing her or what he did after he found her body because of years of alcohol dependency, a court has heard.

James D’Arcy, 50 and of no fixed abode, told Winchester Crown Court yesterday that he and his girlfriend Hayley Dean would smoke marijuana and drink alcohol nearly every day.

He discovered her lifeless body at her home in Derby Road, Bournemouth on the morning of September 16 last year, it was heard.

Jurors were told how D’Arcy and Ms Dean had been seen buying alcohol in the early hours of Thursday, September 15 before Ms Dean went home and D’Arcy slept on Bournemouth beach.

He then joined her at Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court later that morning before they bought more alcohol and sat and drank it in Bournemouth gardens.

But D’Arcy told the court he couldn’t remember leaving the gardens or buying more alcohol later that day.

Nor could he remember furniture being thrown or raised voices at Ms Dean’s flat that evening, as her neighbours had claimed.

When asked to recall the moment he discovered Ms Dean, D’Arcy said: “I woke up at the bottom of the bed.

“It was light. It was Hayley at the top of the bed, blood everywhere.

“There was blood on the walls. There was a hammer on the bed.

“I was just in complete shock really. Obviously I’ve just done what I had done.

“It’s what I must have done because I had blood on me.”

The next thing he remembers, he said, was being on a Yellow Bus.

D’Arcy said he had no memory of an alleged confession to officers about Ms Dean’s death after he was taken to a police station by his friend Robert Wilson the following afternoon.

Defending D’Arcy was Stephen Moses.

He said: “Was it your intention to kill or do serious injury to Hayley last year?”

“No,” D’Arcy replied.

D’Arcy has been diagnosed as having alcohol dependence syndrome and had previously suffered a stroke, the court was told.

Prosecuting, Kerry Maylin asked D’Arcy why he had refused help for his alcoholism.

“You have described that Hayley was the light of your life,” she said.

“Despite the arguments you were happy with her.

“So when you were offered some help why did you choose not to take it?”

D’Arcy offered no explanation.

Ms Maylin told the court that after Ms Dean had died D’Arcy had bought alcohol using Ms Dean’s bank card. The defendant said he doesn’t remember this.

D’Arcy denies murder but admits manslaughter.

He told jurors the only reason he’d appeared in court was to try and provide closure for Ms Dean’s parents and said he would be taking his own life once the jury had decided his fate regardless of the verdict.

The trial continues.