A FORTY-FOUR year old west Cumbrian man who had been charged with murdering his partner in Cleator Moor has died.

Prison Service officials confirmed yesterday afternoon that Trevor Green died on Tuesday, within hours of him appearing before Carlisle Crown Court via a video link.

He was being held in custody accused of murdering his partner, 43-year-old Shelly Clark, last Thursday.

Police launched a murder investigation after an ‘incident’ at a property in Clayton Avenue, Cleator Moor, on the evening of July 15 following a report raising concern for her welfare.

Miss Clark died in hospital the following day.

In a statement, a Prison Service spokesman said: “HMP Durham prisoner Trevor Green died on 21 July.

“As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been informed.”

The confirmation came the day after Green appeared on a video link before a senior judge for a brief hearing to determine how the case would progress.

Wearing a grey sweatshirt, and jogging bottoms, Green spoke to confirm his personal details and to say that he understood what was happening.

For part of the hearing, he had disappeared from the room where he was on the video link – but returned to rejoin the hearing, telling the judge he had been for a comfort break.

Lawyers agreed that a plea hearing was to be held on October 12. As the hearing finished, Green left the room, thanking the judge as he did so.

The day before, he made his first court appearance at Workington’s magistrates court.

He stood silently in the glass-fronted dock of court Number 3, listening, his hands folded behind his back, as the clerk told him magistrates had no power to grant him bail.

Magistrate Jenny Wilkinson told Green, flanked in the dock by a white-shirted security guard, his case would go to the crown court. Relatives spoke warmly of Shelly Clark, describing her as a a “loving mother, daughter, sister, aunty, niece, cousin and friend.”