A DRUG addict battered a friend to death during a "flashback" about being raped by a member of staff at a children's home, a jury heard at Manchester Crown Court.

Kevin Barrett said he only lashed out with a hammer because he felt trapped, and panicked when Terry Evans tried to sexually assault him as he slept.

Barrett said his mind immediately went back to when he was a youngster in a children's home in Broughton, and was raped by a member of staff in the laundry.

The 35-year-old told the jury: "When I woke up and saw him I had a flashback and thought it was going to happen again. Nothing had happened like that since the incident in the children's home."

Barrett said he tried to escape from Mr Evans's home in Moorhey Road, Little Hulton, but the door was locked. He said: "I started to panic and felt trapped.

"I looked round the kitchen and saw the hammer and picked it up as a defensive barrier."

Barrett told the jury Mr Evans, who was smoking heroin, tried to apologise and started to get up off the settee.

He said: "I thought he was going to lunge at me so I hit him with the hammer on the side of the head.

"I don't know what happened. I just hit him and hit him, but I can't remember any detail about it."

Barrett was giving evidence at his trial in which he denies murdering Mr Evans at his home on July 21 last year.

The defence claim Barrett is only guilty of manslaughter because he was provoked by the attempted sexual assault, and that Barrett suffers from a personality disorder which would have substantially impaired his responsibility for the killing and cause "'a sudden and temporary loss of control".

But the prosecution has told the jury Barrett's story was "fictional", and that he killed Mr Evans during a murderous attack during which he beat him 21 times with the hammer, fragmenting his skull.

"The prosecution say there was no provocation and no such loss of control," Andrew Moran, QC for the Crown, has told the jury.

Proceeding