Raider ‘batters pensioner to death with hammer, then fled to Filey’

Judith Richardson, 77, was found battered to death at her home in Hexham, Northumberland, in August last year after her handbag was discovered dumped in a bin in Newcastle.

Graeme Jarman, 48, from Consett, County Durham, denies her murder. He was arrested two weeks later in Filey, North Yorkshire, after police circulated his description and he was spotted by a member of the public.

The prosecution said this was not a random attack, and that there was evidence that Jarman selected his victim, whom he also robbed, the day before.

Robert Smith QC, prosecuting, said: “The murder was done for no other reason than personal gain.”

He added: “This was not a chance encounter with Miss Richardson. The prosecution’s case is that the defendant planned her killing and went to her home well-prepared for what he intended to do.

“In order to kill Miss Richardson, the defendant needed to gain access to her home and to have available some means of explaining his presence in the road where she lived, should he be challenged.

“His method was simple. He took with him two leaflets issued by the charity Age UK.

“These are likely to have been obtained from the Age UK shop shortly before the murder.”

The leaflets were found in the hall of her home after her death and Jarman’s fingerprint was found on one of them, Mr Smith said.

He told the jury: “The person responsible for her murder had ransacked her bedroom and had taken away with him her handbag and items of jewellery.”

Jarman fled Hexham using public transport and sold items on to a Newcastle shop hours later.

Mr Smith said Jarman had planned to kill Miss Richardson as he took a hammer he had stolen from a Hexham department store with him.

“He used that hammer to batter her to death then abandoned it in a carrier bag on a wall next to her home,” Mr Smith said.

CCTV images of Jarman in Hexham, Newcastle and other locations were later detected, the court heard.

Police were able to “piece together what we submit is a powerful and compelling case against the defendant, that he was the person who killed Miss Richardson”, he said.

The trial, which is scheduled to last up to four weeks, continues.

Mr Smith told jurors there was “clear and material evidence” linking Jarman to the killing.

“The defendant handled the Age UK leaflets found in Miss Richardson’s home,” he said.

“Of particular significance, you will hear about the finding of DNA which matches the profile of the defendant found on a tissue on top of a chest of drawers in Miss Richardson’s ransacked bedroom. The tissue also bore blood which can be shown to be Miss Richardson’s blood.

“We will be inviting you to conclude there is clear evidence that the defendant brought that hammer to the scene and abandoned it outside Miss Richardson’s home after the killing.

“I’ll also have evidence of how the defendant set out to buy a complete change of clothing and shaved his head to disguise himself after the killing.

“They serve to establish only one realistic conclusion and that is that the defendant is the man who murdered Miss Richardson.”

The jury was shown CCTV footage of both Jarman and Miss Richardson shopping in Hexham the day before she was killed.

At one stage, Jarman appears to leave Beal’s store, where the prosecution alleges he stole the hammer he used as a murder weapon, just 30 seconds before Miss Richardson, who was doing her shopping, enters.

Mr Smith told jurors that the defendant had just £1.55 in his bank account and had ended the tenancy on his flat and travelled to Hexham two days before the killing.

He slept in a bed and breakfast on his first night in the town before sleeping rough the second night, the court heard.

The CCTV footage appeared to show Jarman walking around the town centre, carrying a distinctive green bag and talking to elderly residents.

Mr Smith said: “The prosecution say that, at this time, the defendant was observing elderly females. There’s clear evidence that this is what he was doing.”

The jury heard that Jarman had been watching one woman, who was not the murder victim.

He added: “The prosecution submit it is obvious that the defendant was observing this elderly, infirm lady and he had no obvious or sensible purpose for doing so.

“The subsequent murder of Judith Richardson serves to explain that that morning he’d been observing potential victims and his interest was in elderly females.”

Miss Richardson, who lived with her terrier Hamish, had started her lunch of buttered toast when the killer called at her home.

Mr Smith said: “It’s likely that the person who killed her rang her doorbell as she started to eat her lunch, given the fact her meal was unfinished.”