A BUSINESSMAN who might have been sleepwalking the night he battered his elderly father to death, broke down in the dock as a pathologist revealed the catalogue of injuries sustained by the victim.

Jules Lowe put his head in his hand and sobbed as the jury at Manchester Crown Court heard evidence uncovered during a post mortem examination on his 83-year-old father Edward.

The trial Judge, Mr Justice Henriques, immediately spotted how upset Lowe was becoming and allowed him to leave court as the rest of Dr Naomi Carter's findings were disclosed to the jury.

Dr Carter said she found a total of 90 injuries - mainly bruising and abrasions - on Mr Lowe Snr who was found dead in the drive of his home in Windmill Lane, Walkden, in October 2003. He had 33 injuries to the head and neck, 15 to the body and others to both arms and legs.

The victim's nose was also broken and he had 12 rib fractures and a haemorrhage over the surface of the brain which, she said, was probably caused by repeated blows to the head, shaking the brain. "I think the head injuries indicate repeated blows and I think they are entirely in keeping with repeated punching, kicks and possibly some stamping," Dr Carter said.

Dr Carter was a prosecution witness at the trial in which 32-year-old Lowe denies murdering his father after they had been out drinking together with Lowe's older brother and business partner, David.

The jury has been told the issue in the case was Lowe's state of mind at the time of the incident. Lowe has a history of sleepwalking. Experts are expected to give evidence about the timing of the attack - if it happened after he went to sleep or when he was in "a confusional arousal state" when he was coming out of sleep but still unaware of what he was doing.

Prosecutor Richard Marks QC has told the jury: "If that is right and at the time of the attack he had no knowledge of and no control of what he was doing so that his acts were involuntary there would be available to him the defence of automatism."