Braintree murder trial: defendant denies killing friend left undiscovered for a month

Amy Keely, 40, is on trial at Chelmsford Crown Court accused of murdering Helen Bloomfield at her Essex flat in March 2024. Keely told jurors the accusations were "all lies".

Defendant tells Chelmsford jury she had 'no need' to harm friend

Amy Keely, 40, has told a jury at Chelmsford Crown Court that she did not kill her friend Helen Bloomfield, 52, describing her as "a cracking girl", bbc.com reports.

Prosecutors allege that Keely and co-defendant Charlotte James, 29, murdered Bloomfield at her flat in Godric Place, Aetheric Road, Braintree, Essex, in March 2024. The body was not found until 19 April — a month after the alleged killing.

Julian Evans KC, prosecuting, told the court the pair smothered Bloomfield with a pillow "at some point" after 01:00 on 20 March. Bloomfield suffered 44 injuries, including stab and cut wounds. Evans described her as a vulnerable woman who had previously been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

"Helen was my friend — she was a cracking girl — I have no need to have an argument with her," Keely told jurors.

Keely, who said she lived in a van, told the court she had first met Bloomfield in 2022 and that the two regularly drank together and took drugs at Bloomfield's home. She said she had been using drugs for 20 years and by 2024 was smoking crack cocaine daily and injecting heroin. She claimed she last visited the flat to take heroin in either February or March, and said traces of her blood found at the scene — including on broken mirror fragments — were the result of drug use, not violence.

Sasha Wass KC, defending, noted that four witnesses had reported hearing Keely brag about killing Bloomfield. Keely flatly rejected the claim. "They lie — everybody's names have been in these people's mouths," she said. "They don't like me — I have not done or said any of these things that they said I have — it is all lies."

Evans argued the two defendants ransacked Bloomfield's flat after failing to find money or drugs. "The mood took a very dark turn and it led to you ransacking that flat and you turned it upside down," he told Keely, adding that the pair "left her for dead". The prosecutor said they then washed blood off in the bathroom before helping themselves to breakfast cereal, leaving "Cheerios streaming across the surfaces". Keely denied this account.

She also told the court she had knocked on Bloomfield's door roughly a week after the alleged incident and, when she received no answer, assumed her friend had been sectioned again. She said she was "gutted" when she later learned of Bloomfield's death.

James, of St Michael's Lane, Braintree, and Keely, of no fixed address, have both been on trial since 8 September. The trial continues.

Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)