A couple drowned a homeless woman in their bath before ‘callously’ dumping her body in communal bins and claiming her benefit payments, a court has heard.

The body of Lisa Bennett – who disappeared shortly after her 39th birthday in 2013 – has never been recovered after her remains were incinerated at a community waste facility, Birmingham Crown Court was told.

Kathleen Salmond, who is now ‘largely confined to a bed or a wheelchair’, and her boyfriend Kevin Flanagan, are alleged to have murdered Miss Bennett at their Weirbrook Close flat in Birmingham, on or around May 9, 2013, after telling her she was having her ‘last dinner’.

Flanagan’s own brother Joseph came forward to police in November 2014.

A jury was told that the defendants ‘reaped the benefit of Lisa’s disappearance’ after Salmond phoned the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), pretending to be Miss Bennett, asking for her £230 benefit payments to be paid into her own account.

The prosecution says Flanagan used Miss Bennett’s phone to text her mother ‘to make her believe that nothing had happened and Lisa was alive’.

The court heard the couple ‘calmly’ told police that Miss Bennett was ‘alive and well’ and had asked them to transfer her benefits into Salmond’s account.

They allegedly told officers that Miss Bennett’s new boyfriend would collect it every week for her – a boyfriend the prosecution claims did not exist.

The jury was told Miss Bennett was a drug and alcohol addict, and was not seen again after collecting a prescribed substitute for heroin from a pharmacy.

Salmond, 40, of Farnhurst Road, Hodge Hill, Birmingham, and Flanagan, 39, of Redbrook Covert, Kings Norton, Birmingham, deny murder.

Salmond, who appeared by video link from a bed, also denies benefit fraud between May 8 and 31 2013, and preventing Miss Bennett’s burial – charges which Flanagan has previously admitted.

Opening the case against the defendants earlier today, prosecutor Simon Denison QC said: ‘On Thursday May 9 2013, Lisa Bennett collected her daily Subutex prescription from the pharmacy in Selly Oak.

‘She was never seen or heard from again by anyone who cared for her. She vanished.

‘The two defendants reaped the benefit of Lisa’s disappearance by withdrawing Lisa’s benefit money from Kathleen Salmond’s bank account and spending it for themselves.’

Mr Denison suggested the pair were ‘lying’ and that Miss Bennett’s apparent boyfriend, referred to as Ian, was fictional.

He continued: ‘Lisa died in their flat on or around May 9 2013. Her body has never been found. She has no grave.

‘The prosecution case is that the defendants murdered her, and then callously disposed of her body in the communal bins opposite their flat, where it lay undiscovered before the bins were emptied and the contents were taken to the council waste disposal facility a few days later.

‘There, her body was incinerated with the community’s waste.’

He said Flanagan had told his brother Joseph that Miss Bennett was feeling suicidal and wanted to die so they ‘did it for her’ – but that his sibling only realised the story was true when he saw a TV appeal and then came forward.

Mr Denison said the couple ‘pretended’ their victim was alive for financial gain and kept up the pretence for years, leaving the family without answers until Mr Flanagan came forward.

The trial continues.

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