IT MAY never be known why Penny John and her son Barry Rogers had decided to kill 84-year-old Betty Guy, a murder trial jury were told this afternoon, February 1.

Western Telegraph:

Betty Guy.

But Paul Lewis QC, the barrister leading their prosecution at Swansea Crown Court, said he was not interested in verdicts of manslaughter-"our case is that both are guilty of murder. Penny John summoned her son from 160 miles away to do it.

"And when he got to Pembrokeshire he smothered her and indeed killed her."

But the reason, he added, may never be known.

John, aged 50, of Maes Dre, Union Terrace, St Dogmaels, and Rogers, 33, of High Street, Fishguard, deny murdering Mrs Guy at her home in Hillcroft, Johnston, during the early hours of November 7, 2011.

At first her death was put down to natural causes and her body was cremated at Narberth four days later.

Now, the prosecution claim John fed her drugs and whiskey and that Rogers "finished her off" by placing a pillow over her face.

Mr Lewis this afternoon made his closing address to the jury at Swansea crown court.

He said both John, Mrs Guy's daughter, and Rogers, her grandson, had dealt with police "like politicians, answering questions they wished they had been asked and not the ones that they were”.

Both, he said, had changed their stories repeatedly.

"It is an unhappy case. It is hardly believable that a daughter and a grandson might kill their mother and grandmother. But that is what the evidence demonstrates," he added.

Christopher Henley QC, the barrister representing Rogers, said the "fundamental and inescapable problem" in the case was that there might not have been a crime at all.

"There is no medical evidence about the cause of death. Surely what is needed is some medical certainty that this was an unlawful death. That should be decisive to the verdicts.

"How can you be sure this old lady did not die naturally from a range and combination of significant health issues?"

Mr Henley said the prosecution could not even offer a motive for murder. Rogers inherited only a washing machine and a tumble dryer.

"The prosecution do not have to prove a motive but you might think they could suggest one," he told the jury.

He said Mrs Guy had been an elderly lady "ready to go”. She had made arrangements for her funeral and had made her modest will. And she had told her GP that if the situation arose she did not want to be resuscitated.

And on top of real health difficulties she had convinced herself, and others, that she had cancer when there was no real medical evidence that she had.

The jury will retire late tomorrow (Friday, February 2) or, more likely, on Monday morning.