A woman who posed for selfies by the rotting corpse of her ‘murdered sugar daddy’ denied being a ‘cold, callous killer’ as she spoke publicly for the first time about the crime.

Kirsty Edmondson is accused of killing former teacher Kenneth Chapman, 47, with a heroin overdose so she could steal from him.

In dramatic testimony, the 23-year-old blamed her co-defendant and ‘pimp’, Christopher Sawyers, 36, for the killing, but admitted stealing Mr Chapman’s money and belongings before and after he died.

The pair, of no fixed address, deny murder. Mr Sawyers also denies manslaughter, following the Ancoats death of Peter Clark, 60, who died after a heroin injection in July 2012.

Ms Edmondson said on the day Mr Chapman died they did drugs together at his Eccles flat, and after he passed out on the couch, she called Sawyers to the flat because she wanted more drugs. It’s alleged that Mr Sawyers found newspaper articles in the flat which reported Mr Chapman’s 2007 conviction for child grooming and said, ‘he’s a ****ing paedophile, I’m gonna ****ing kill him.’

Giving evidence in her defence, Ms Edmondson said she ‘tried to protect’ Mr Chapman as Sawyers repeatedly ‘jabbed’ a ‘massive’ needle into him, but he kicked her in the head.

“It reminded me of something in a film - it was sick - I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing with my eyes, it was horrific. (Sawyers) was ranting and raving, talking about how he’s a serial killer now, he’s done this before”, she said.

“I’ve done things before and after Ken’s death which I’m deeply ashamed of. But I’m not a cold callous killer that takes ‘trophy pictures’ - I’m not that person. Them pictures certainly weren’t meant as anything like that. I’m a thief, a prostitute and a drug addict, but I don’t go around murdering people”, she added.

Asked why she posed for photos ‘cuddling’ her co-defendant when Mr Chapman was ‘lying dead a few feet away’, she said: “I can’t remember taking those pictures - I was ****ed off my face, I was trying to act normal. I know it doesn’t look like it in them pictures, but I was scared of (Sawyers). He’s just killed somebody in front of me, he said we’re both going jail for murder for a long time if I don’t stick with him. I believed that. I thought (Sawyers) is capable of doing it again.”

Ms Edmondson said she was assaulted by Mr Sawyers days after Mr Chapman’s death. She later reported the death to the police, saying, ‘it was eating me up inside’, and that she was now ‘paying for it’.

Malcolm Swift QC, defending Mr Sawyers, said Ms Edmondson had perfected being an ‘actress and a liar’ from her years as a prostitute. She accepted this, but denied lying about the killing, which Sawyers says she committed.

Speaking of her relationship with Ken Chapman, she said: “It was my normality. I have met (Sawyers) and my life went upside down. He killed the best person I had in my life.”

Prosecutor Tony Cross QC said: “I’m going to suggest to you that you are exactly what you claim not to be a - cold callous killer. There’s an example of how cold and callous you were because there’s photographs taken on the very evening that you had killed Kenneth Chapman.

“I didn’t kill anybody”, she said.

“Do you accept it’s you taking a selfie - no-one forced the camera into your hand. You were within touching distance of the corpse of Ken Chapman weren’t you?”

“Yeah, it looks that way.”

She went on to deny that she and Mr Sawyers were ‘celebrating’ killing Mr Chapman for his money, saying: “I got more off Ken when he was alive then when he was dead. There was no reason to want that man dead. I was a horrible person then but that does not make me a killer. It was a situation that got out of control...I was petrified. I thought (Sawyers) was going to kill me.”

Proceeding