A WITNESS has told how he swapped his axe for a machete with the Worcester man accused of hacking his flatmate to death and chopping his body in half.

Nigel Smith told Birmingham Crown Court yesterday that he had made the swap on the evening of Monday, June 30 after the accused, Gerald Edwards, went round to his flat.

Nigel Rumfitt, prosecuting, asked Mr Smith why Edwards had called at his home.

Edwards said he was in his garden.

"I wanted to do it up to impress the landlord," he said. "I have a tree and I hit it with an axe to prune it. Gerald said he had a machete that would do a better job. I went round to his flat and we swapped," he said.

Mr Smith admitted he had been given the axe by another friend - Colin Fisher - as a present when he moved house.

As part of his statement to the police, Mr Smith said he drew a picture of the axe he had once owned. It was described in court as of mediaeval appearance and ornamental.

Earlier in the day, Home Office pathologist Peter Acland told the court how Liverpudlian Michael Kelly had died.

"He died from a haemorrhage due to the rupture of an artery on the left-hand side of the neck caused by a sharp blow," he said.

"The body was then cut in half just above the waist."

Another witness, Ann Padgett, told the court how she touched the body of Michael Kelly after her cousin Ashley Shearon called her from an Avon Road flat for help.

"I could tell it was urgent, but I didn't know what it was about," she said.

"When I got to the flat Ashley was vomiting everywhere. He took me out to a car and showed me the body. I touched a foot and I left straight away."

Asked why she didn't report it to the police, she added: "It just didn't seem real, it still doesn't. I can't believe it, it is like a fairy tale."

Gerald Edwards, aged 32, denies murdering his flatmate, Michael Kelly, with an axe in July last year, and then sawing him in half.

Gary Wood, aged 46, of Lowesmoor, denies perverting the course of justice.

Ashley Shearon is awaiting sentence after admitting perverting the course of justice.

The trial continues.