Joanne Hussey, 33, said she had been hearing the voices for about three weeks. They stopped and started but got stronger as the days passed.

"They were telling me that my grandma was bad and she needed killing," she told Leeds Crown Court yesterday. "I just wanted them to stop."

Hussey, of Grange Mount, Yeadon, Leeds admits the manslaughter of Annie Garbutt, 77, on the grounds of diminished responsibility but denies her murder.

She pretended initially to have found her dead on the morning of May 7 last year at her home in The Clough, Battyeford, Mirfield, but later after her arrest said she had flashbacks of the voices telling her to kill her and rem-embered hitting her with a spade, the jury has heard.

The prosecution claims her motive was financial, fearing her grandmother's money would go to pay for her to go into a home.

Hussey told the court she first became dep-ressed during her pregnancy with her daughter Josephine, who was born disabled in 1996.

Until then her relationship with the father, Gary Purchon, was good. Afterwards she could not control her temper and "would fly off the handle for the slightest thing".

Sometimes one or other of them was violent and they separated on occasions. She said her confidence was low and she did not feel good about herself and had relationships with other men she worked with at the Post Office "because they made me feel wanted".

Hussey said her mother helped her look after Josephine but it was hard having a disabled child.

After the final breakdown of the relationship with Mr Purchon she was really depressed. After a fight with him at work over his taking their child on holiday she was suspended.

Her GP had prescribed medication and she was referred to a psychiatrist. She had last seen him on April 27 and told him she felt much better. She said that was untrue but she wanted him to say she was fit to return to work.

She told the jury she loved her grandmother. "We were really close because I was always her favourite one."

The trial continues.