A PREGNANT woman was found dead after her partner stabbed her 60 times in the face and neck during a row, a court heard.
Amber O’Brien’s body was left on the bathroom floor of a flat in Blackley, north , where she was living with Stephan Garner, the father of her nine-week-old unborn twins.
Ms O’Brien, 33, was found naked, cold to the touch and covered in blue tarpaulin lying in pools of water, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Garner, 31, has pleaded guilty to her manslaughter on April 18 but denies murdering her.
Nigel Power KC, opening the case for the prosecution, said: “She had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck and face.
“The pathologist recorded more than 60 separate stab, incised and puncture wounds, 32, of them to her face and neck.”
Mr Power said of Garner: “He then spent the next day and a half stripping her, washing her body, bleaching his flat, bagging up her bloodstained clothing, destroying her telephone and getting rid of his own, before the truth caught up with him.”
He told a relative he had been “cleaning up” the bathroom after buying bleach and scouring sponges from , the court heard.
Cops forced their way into the eighth floor flat at around 6pm the day after Ms O’Brien’s death, after Garner allegedly told his cousin that he’d “stabbed her in the neck twice”.
The pair had been in a relationship for about three months prior to her death, it was told.
Ms O’Brien told her brother she and Garner “argued a lot over silly things”, and that she was “unhappy about his mood swings”, it was heard.
There was also said to have been a “running dispute” over Ms O’Brien’s flat in Middleton, which jurors were told Garner wanted her to move in with him but she felt “pressured”.
Garner told jurors he “lost control” and killed Ms O’Brien after repeated arguments about her alleged use of cocaine while she was pregnant.
Mr Power said the “friction was not all one way” in the relationship and Ms O’Brien could be heard threatening Garner on an audio recording.
Prosecutors argue that Ms O’Brien’s behaviour “doesn’t come anywhere close” to justifying Garner’s actions.
In the early hours of the day she died, Ms O’Brien called her brother and said: “I can’t stand him, I’m not staying here.”
A court heard she left the flat, but later returned with her boyfriend.
The court was played a recording of a call she made on April 15, requesting a termination of her pregnancy.
Ms O’Brien told the operator that she was experiencing domestic violence and had reported it to .
Mr Power said the following day she spoke to a nurse at St Mary’s Hospital and repeated the allegation.
He told jurors: “She told the nurse Garner regularly used cocaine, drank alcohol and had mental concerns.
“She said she had not seen him for a month and had no intention of going back. She told the nurse that it was awful and that if she went back he would kill her.”
The victim was then referred to an independent domestic violence adviser and a date for the termination of her pregnancy was agreed the following Thursday, April 22, the court heard.
The day before her death, Ms O’Brien had a hospital consultation where a nurse heard her crying, jurors heard.
Mr Power said: “She was not expecting twins and was surprised. But as hard as it was, she still wanted the termination as it was ‘the right decision’ and she ‘did not want any links’ to Stephan.”
The nurse also filled out a , Stalking and Honour-based Violence (DASH) form with Amber, who described an incident where Stephan had tried to lock her in a room, was aggressive and “used physical force”.
Jurors were then told that between July 2019 and January 2026, Ms O’Brien had made nine separate complaints to police of assaults against her by ex-partners and associates, as well as one complaint of rape.
None of these resulted in a prosecution, the court heard.
Garner told the court he and the victim entered a whirlwind romance after meeting in January, but he began to have “second thoughts” after witnessing her “heavy drug use”.
He told the court she was “reliant” on cocaine and would consume it “every other day, sometimes daily”, by both snorting and it.
“It made her erratic, she would get very irate over small things and become aggressive. I asked her to stop and she didn’t like that,” Garner said.
Garner denied ever being physically abusive towards Ms O’Brien, telling his barrister that she was “very quick to complain” if anything upset her but that there was not “to his knowledge” any police probe.
He has pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denies murder.
The trial continues.
