A FRIEND of murder victim Jamie Dack, pictured, has told a court how he was being “treated like a dog” by a gang who had allegedly beaten him and left him badly bruised and bleeding.

Amber Paterson said how the walls of the flat were blood splattered. When Jamie was eventually let out of the wardrobe he had been shut in after the attack, he was forced to clean up his own blood from the carpet while they laughed.

Miss Paterson, 23, was giving evidence at Winchester Crown Court about the incidents on Thursday, April 5, when she had visited a flat in Bevois Mews, Southampton. In the flat was Andrew Dwyer-Skeats and Lee Nicholls, who she said would not let her near Jamie. The fourth man accused of murder, Ryan Woodmansey, was also there but in another room.

Asked how it made her feel, Miss Paterson, who had known Jamie since Year 7 at Testwood School in Totton, said: “I just wanted to run to Jamie, just hold him and get him out of here.”

Nicholls, 28, of Southampton Street, Donna Chalk, 21, and Dwyer-Skeats, 26 of Bevois Mews, and Woodmansey, 32, of no fixed abode, all deny murder. The men have admitted perverting the course of justice by disposing of and setting fire to Jamie’s body in a bin in Empress Road in the early hours of Easter Sunday. Chalk denies that charge.

Proceeding.