Murder accused ‘told of second post office raid’

POLICE were summoned to Melsonby Post Office near Richmond after the husband of postmistress Diana Garbutt reported finding her bloodstained body following an armed robbery, a jury heard.

Robin Garbutt told ambulance control in a 999 call on March 23 last year that it was the second time they had been robbed in the past year.

He said he had found her on the double bed in one of the bedrooms and told the operator he could feel no pulse saying “her hand’s a funny colour”.

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David Hatton, QC, prosecuting, told a jury at Teesside Crown Court yesterday the operator suggested Garbutt go to a neighbour’s for help.

He returned with Pauline Dye and it was then Mrs Garbutt’s body was turned over.

Paramedics found her hair was matted with blood and they saw the presence of rigor mortis and hypostasis, the pooling of blood in the tissues once the heart has stopped.

“This suggested to them that Diana Garbutt had been dead for some time.”

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Mr Hatton told the jury it was the prosecution’s case the robbery reported by Garbutt was a sham and that he was himself the murderer, an allegation which he denies.

The prosecutor said the first robbery at the post office was reported on March 17, 2009 when Garbutt said two men wearing hooded tops, one armed with a hand gun, had made off with £10,000 cash.

Nobody had been traced for that raid.

Garbutt told Pc Mark Reed who arrived after the reported break-in in March last year that he had been in the shop when a man wearing a mask and carrying a gun entered from the door dividing the shop from the living quarters and told him to turn the lights off, lock the front door and not to do anything stupid.

He said he had found his wife bleeding in the bed upstairs after he had filled a bag with money for the raider and he had left.

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Mr Hatton told the jury in his account as a witness Garbutt described having got up early as usual to open the shop and that he was serving a customer, Dorothy Cole, as the safe started bleeping to indicate the alarm was de-activated and could be opened.

It was after the customer had left that the robber had entered and Garbutt did what he was told after the raider said “we’ve got your wife.”.

“He handed me a black holdall and he said put the money in the bag I think, or put the money from the safe, I can’t remember.”

The man followed him as he went to the safe and took out the money, filling the bag. When he heard him leave he went straight upstairs to find “Di” sprawled on the bed. “I knew, do you know, I knew then that she wasn’t right, I knew she was dead.”

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Mr Hatton told the jury there was a time delay of four minutes once the de-activation of the safe began before it could be opened which meant the time between the safe bleeping and the 999 call was a “mere 79 seconds.”

He claimed Mrs Garbutt had been violently attacked in her own bed and that the fatal assault was not carried out by a robber waiting around for the safe to open.

An examination of Mrs Garbutt’s stomach contents suggested the attack on her was between 2.30 and 4.30 am and she bore no defence injuries.

Mr Hatton said to the jury: “One of the questions that you will have to consider if you accept this evidence is the likelihood of a robber or robbers being prepared violently to kill a female sleeping in her own bed at all – and then having done so to wait there for up to 4-6 hours before going downstairs to rob the post office.”

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Among objects seized by the police as possible murder weapons was a metal bar found two days after the killing on a high wall across the road which bore DNA of Mrs Garbutt and the policeman who found it.

Fragments from the pipe were similar to those found at the scene. Tiny rust like fragments were also found on Garbutt’s clothes.

The trial continues.