A YORK drug dealer accused of committing a gruesome double murder in the city made an emotional phone confession to his mother while on the run from police, a court heard.

Heroin addict John Paul Marshall, 43, contacted Susan Lightfoot from an Amsterdam hostel on December 21, 2003, and told her: "I did it."

Marshall admits bludgeoning fellow heroin addicts and dealers Kevin Mulgrew, 38, and Daniel Wall, 27, to death with a solid wooden lamp base, as they slept in his Gillygate flat after smoking drugs together in the early hours of December 1.

But he denies murdering the men, on the grounds that he was provoked and lost control.

Mrs Lightfoot, 61, told Leeds Crown Court that she saw her son later that day, when he visited her home in the Hull Road area to collect his washing. "He was quite distracted," she said.

The following day he fled York after staff in the Oven Gloves bakery below his flat reported a "brownish red substance" dripping down their wall and a council worker was sent to the property.

The bodies were only discovered on December 4 after further complaints about leaking fluids and a terrible stench.

Mrs Lightfoot, a retired school secretary, said she knew that Marshall was smoking heroin, but she tried to keep out of that side of his life and he never asked her for money.

She said she had been concerned about the eldest of her four children in the weeks running up to the murders because she thought he was becoming agoraphobic.

Spells in prison for cannabis possession and causing death by dangerous driving had profoundly affected his personality and turned him to heroin, she said. "He became not as outgoing and a bit introverted at times."

When Marshall phoned his mother after more than two weeks on the run, she said she begged him to come home so they could help him.

"He kept crying and saying I am sorry, mum. I love you," Mrs Lightfoot told the court. She said he told her he had "nothing to lose" and planned to travel around Europe busking with his guitar to raise money.

When she asked about why he had killed the two men, she said he replied: "They were making me do terrible things and they were just taking over my life."

Mr Mulgrew and Mr Wall moved into Marshall's flat after their previous base in Cemetery Road was raided by police in late November.

The court heard that the legal tenant of the council flat, Sarah Goddard, and her boyfriend, Richard Mullen, had offered to put the pair up in the summer of 2003, but had moved out because of their drug dealing.

Miss Goddard said Mr Mulgrew took the keys to the flat and she only visited occasionally.

When asked by Marshall's barrister, Paul Worsley QC, why she did not tell Mr Mulgrew to leave her flat, Miss Goddard said: "I was frightened to say something."

The trial continues on Monday.

Updated: 09:24 Saturday, December 18, 2004