Decision due on 'massacre' trial delay

The family were found dead at their home in Clydach

A judge in Swansea will decide whether to continue with the trial of a man accused of killing four members of the same family after one of the jurors was taken ill.

The young man apparently fainted as he was being shown a video of the scene which confronted officers inside the house in Kelvin Road, Clydach, where Mandy Power, 34, her mother Doris Dawson, 80, and her daughters Katie, 10 and Emily, eight, were found beaten to death.

David Morris: Denies the murders

Judge Mr Justice Butterfield called for the video to be stopped and the case adjourned on Tuesday as the man was taken to the casualty department of the city's Singleton Hospital.

A decision on how to proceed in the case against scrap metal dealer David George Morris, 39, from Craig Cefn Parc in the Swansea Valley, who denies the murders, is expected to be taken on Wednesday morning.

The jury had already been told the family were found dead in what they heard was a massacre of grotesque savagery.

Members of the public gallery also fled in tears after the video was stopped.

It showed what seemed a normal family house with washing still on the line in the back garden.

Doris Dawson was attacked in her bedroom

But later it showed the bodies of Mandy Power and her two daughters on the ground outside the house.

The court heard on Monday that the bodies had been taken from the house by firefighters who did not realise they were dead before the blaze had started.

Opening the case for the prosecution at Swansea Crown Court on Monday, Patrick Harrington QC said Mr Morris exploded into a "violent rage" after Mrs Power spurned his sexual advances.

He had attacked her in her bedroom on June 26, 1999 after she had returned from a babysitting trip.

When Mrs Power ran terrified to her mother's bedroom, Mr Harrington said Mr Morris attacked her too because she would have recognised him.

Several fires were started in the Kelvin Road house

Little Katie's body was found on the landing nearby, and that of her younger sister Emily was found cowering in her bedroom.

They had all been bludgeoned to death with an iron pole.

Afterwards, according to the prosecution, Mr Morris cleaned the blood off himself in the shower.

He covered his right hand with a sock to avoid leaving fingerprints as he set five separate fires around the family's houses.

Several pieces of paper were stuffed around Doris Dawson's body before they were set alight.

However, Mr Harrington said, neighbours alerted the emergency services and the fire was quickly brought under control.

Brick dust

The jury also heard Mr Morris only became the main focus of the huge police inquiry into the murders in March last year.

A chain belonging to the scrap dealer which was found in the house was so bloodstained that experts were at first unable to take any DNA from it.

However, scientists eventually found brick dust and a tiny speck of paint which matched paint on Mrs Power's kitchen units.

Mr Morris had originally denied that the chain was his but later acknowledged that it probably did belong to him.

Details of Mrs Power's complicated love life - including a lesbian relationship with a former police officer who was originally questioned by police - have also emerged.

Attack detailed

Mr Harrington said Mandy Power was "very friendly" with Mr Morris' girlfriend at the time Mandy Jewell.

He said Mr Morris did not approve of their friendship, but he still wanted a sexual relationship with Mrs Power.

On the eve of the killings Mr Morris spent the day drinking in a local pub, he said.

After arguing with his girlfriend, Mr Harrington said Mr Morris went to Mrs Power's home in Kelvin Road.

The divorcee was confronted by him when she returned after a night out babysitting.

Earlier the jury was warned by Mr Harrington that they would have to "subdue their emotions" and prepare to be "shocked and appalled" by the killings.

Members of Mrs Power's family, sitting in the public gallery, wept as the attack was detailed.

'A massacre'

"All four were the victim of the most grotesque violence and it is the prosecution case that the defendant killed them," said Mr Harrington.

"In each case, their heads were smashed with such force that massive bone damage was done to each of them.

"This was not simply murder, this was a massacre," he said.

The trial which is taking place in an annexe at Swansea's Guildhall is expected to last three-and-a-half months.