The man accused of murdering Roy Helm told a jury how his girlfriend had inflicted the fatal blows he compared to those in 'WWF wrestling videos'.

Mr Helm was found with 20 rib fractures and a damaged liver at a flat in St Nicholas Road, Littlemore, in August last year.

John Beckley, 42, denies murdering him and told Oxford Crown Court on Friday that his girlfriend Lynn Cook - a former partner of Mr Helm - was to blame.

He said he and Miss Cook were asleep on a sofa bed in Mr Helm's flat following a heavy drinking session that had ended in Miss Cook and Mr Helm bickering.

They woke up to find Mr Helm watching them in the dark. Beckley told the jury Miss Cook had called Mr Helm a 'weirdo' and had then got up, taken a 'big swing' and kicked him between the legs, causing him to fall to the floor.

He added: "It reminded me of one of the WWF wrestling videos that Lynn plays with her boys."

She then got Mr Helm in a headlock, at which point, Beckley said, he jumped up and prised Miss Cook's fingers off him.

He told the jury he was trying to keep the peace but was not shocked by what had happened. He said: "I'd seen them fight before. This wasn't really out of the ordinary."

Beckley then tried to talk to Mr Helm, but Mr Helm picked a glass up and pushed it towards Beckley's face, saying: "You can keep out of it, Beck."

In response, Beckley hit him across the mouth, cutting his lip. Mr Helm told Beckley he would get someone to 'do' him for that, so Beckley headbutted him, breaking his nose.

Beckley told the jury he then saw Miss Cook, who was lying on the sofa bed, tapping the side of Mr Helm's head with her foot.

He added: "Then it gets harder and then she really whacks her shoe into the side of his head."

Asked by Julian Baughan, defending Beckley, why he didn't intervene, he said: "I'd had enough. That's the honest truth. It was making me feel sick."

He went to the bathroom where he 'hid' for about five minutes. When he returned to the room, he noticed blood on the floor and saw Mr Helm curled up between the piano and television.

Beckley, who lived at Kidlington Road in Islip according to court records, told the jury Mr Helm then crawled off towards the door, calling Miss Cook a "slag".

Miss Cook then got up and "volleyed a kick" into Mr Helm's stomach. Beckley went back to sleep and woke up the next day to find Miss Cook and Mr Helm's partner Alison Campbell talking.

He said: "They seemed to be organising that Roy had come back from the pub beaten up.

"They sounded as through they were organising a story to me."

Beckley said there was a strong smell of cleaning fluid in the flat. He left later that morning and heard Mr Helm was dead several days later.

Asked by prosecutor Yvonne Coen why, in interview, he had not told police it was Miss Cook who killed Mr Helm, he said: "I knew that Lynn had done this and I was just hoping to God that Lynn and Alison would say what had happened and I'd be out in the morning."

Mrs Coen said: "What you've told the jury is a pack of lies from first to last. If what you say is right, none of what happened to Roy is down to you, except a cut lip and a bloody nose. Is that correct?" Beckley said that it was.

The court has heard that no charges were ever brought against Miss Cook.

The trial continues.