Grisly images of the horrific head injuries suffered by Claire Turnbull were shown to jurors in a murder trial today.

Forensic pathologist Dr Ian Wilkinson told the High Court in Livingston about the devastating damage caused by multiple blows which shattered her skull and destroyed underlying brain tissue.

Claire was found dead in a flat in Rintoul Avenue, Blairhall, on October 5 last year. 

Dr Wilkinson, 38, said: “Given the distribution of the (face and neck) injuries it’s difficult to see a scenario where one impact would account for the number of injuries described.”

Before the graphic photographs were issued, Judge Lady Scott warned the jury: “This is quite difficult to look at."

She ruled that the photos should not be shown to the public benches, where friends and relatives of the dead woman were sitting.

Aaron Donald, 28, and Laura McMurdo, 30, from Blairhall, are accused of murdering Claire and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by hiding a hammer believed to be the murder weapon and giving police false information.

They deny the charges and Donald has lodged special defences claiming he could not be held criminally responsible because he was suffering from a mental disorder and diminished responsibility at the time of the killing.

The jury previously heard Donald telling police that he had “lost it” when he saw Claire making sexual advances to his girlfriend, McMurdo.

He described how he grabbed her by the throat and punched her twice on the face before grabbing a claw hammer and hitting her on the head a number of times.

The forensic pathologist told the jury he had found numerous bruises to Claire’s neck and face particularly around her left eye and mouth.

More significantly, he said, Claire had seven severe head injuries which had caused multiple fracturing – including a ‘hinge fracture’ to the base of her skull.

He summarised the cause of death as “blunt force trauma of the head as a result of multiple impacts between head and a blunt object, lacerations of the scalp, extensive fracturing of the skull and traumatic damage of the brain".

Dr Wilkinson added: “It suggests considerable force has been used.”

Examination of cellular material showed limited changes, indicating that Claire’s survival time after the injuries had been very short.

He said he found no signs of defensive injuries to suggest that she might have tried to fight her attacker off.

Among the head wounds, he identified a number of lacerations which were U-shaped.

He said: “Several have a curved component suggesting an implement with a curved edge may have been used."

Shown a hammer recovered from the accused, he said the injuries were "consistent" with the hammer being used as a weapon.

He stated that Claire had a number of pre-existing medical conditions but none of these had played a role in her death.

The jury was earlier played a video of McMurdo being interviewed by police.

In it she admitted meeting Claire and her boyfriend outside Coady's Bar in Dunfermline on October 5, the day she died.

However, she claimed they had left and she had not seen them again that day.

She admitted getting “steaming” with her co-accused after drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels but denied anyone else was in their flat at Rintoul Avenue.

She showed no reaction in court when video footage, showing her walking along the street with Claire outside Coady's and then waiting for a bus to Blairhall that afternoon, clearly contradicted her statement.

Police digital forensic expert Andrew Seidel, 39, said he had recovered six images of a dead woman from an Alcatel mobile telephone linked to McMurdo’s Gmail account.

The trial, before Lady Scott, continues.