NATASHA BRADBURY suffered 53 separate, external injuries during a sustained and severe assault at her home in Haverfordwest, a doctor told a murder jury today.

And she lay dying for “one to two hours, hours not minutes” before her on-off boyfriend Luke George Jones dialled 999 and asked for an ambulance.

By then she was already “freezing cold” and paramedics were unable to revive her.

Jones, aged 33, of Haven Drive, Milford Haven, denies murdering Miss Bradbury at Flat A, Imperial Court, off the High Street, Haverfordwest, in the early hours of February 22.

The prosecution argue he was jealous and possessive and murdered Miss Bradbury, aged 27, just hours after being told she had slept with another man.

A jury at Swansea Crown Court today heard from Dr Deryk James, who carried out a post mortem examination on her body.

Dr James said he found 17 separate injuries to her face and head, and 13 to her neck and upper chest, including fractures to several ribs and a fracture to her spine.

“These are not injuries you get from a fall but from an assault. And not just one but many,” he said.

The injuries that would prove fatal had been caused to her liver, heart and brain, he added. A litre of blood had leaked out of her liver and into her stomach and there was a small tear in her heart.

Dr James said it would be “pretty bizarre” if the injuries could be explained by Miss Bradbury falling over or suffering a series of accidents.

Some of the injuries were of the sort seen after road traffic accidents or a severe assault.

“You don’t see these tears (to the liver and heart) in ordinary domestic falls,” he added. “It could be a stamp or being thrown against a hard surface at speed.

“The overall pattern is one of assault, a sustained and severe assault,” he said.

Dr James explained to the jury why he believed Miss Bradbury had survived for some time after the fatal injuries had been inflicted.

He said that after suffering injury the body sent inflammatory cells, and other types of cells, to the damaged area to begin the repair process.

A single medic had published a paper suggesting that process could begin as quickly as 35 minutes after impact.

But in his opinion the process did not begin for at least one to two hours.

The process certainly stopped at the point of death, he added.

But an examination of Miss Bradbury’s liver and heart revealed the process had been underway at both sites, which meant she must have remained alive “for hours rather than minutes” after those two attacks.

In addition, said Dr James, nerve fibres in her brain had begun to malfunction following the assault to her head, which was another process that took time to begin and did not take place after death.

There was no evidence, he added, that all the injuries were inflicted at the same time and he could not say that some had not been caused hours after others had.

Dr James said Jones himself had suffered small cuts and abrasions but he could not say when.

Cross examined by Chris Clee QC, the barrister leading Jones’ defence team, Dr James said he could not accept that all the injuries could have been caused by Jones kicking Miss Bradbury “forcefully” and her falling onto a glass coffee table, breaking it, and then onto a cabinet and then onto the floor.

And he could not accept that the injuries to her ribs and to her liver could have been caused by one impact.

“They were separate impacts,” he said.

The trial continues.