Woman denies killing grandmother

A woman has told a court that she held her grandmother's hand while the pensioner committed suicide by smothering herself with a pillow.

Julie Kenyon, 46, is accused of murdering 89-year-old Irene Waters at the home they shared in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in 1996.

The court heard that Ms Kenyon's sister, Carol, had secretly tape-recorded her confessing to smothering their grandmother with a pillow, five years after the death.

She was subsequently arrested and during police interviews said Mrs Waters had asked her to help her die.

But instead of doing so, she told detectives, she had stood by while her grandmother ended her own life by smothering herself.

Suicide claim was 'not credible'

Ms Kenyon, of Dodge Holme Court, Mixenden, Halifax, denies murdering Irene Waters at an address in Albion Court in December 1996.

An inquest shortly afterwards concluded Mrs Waters died of natural causes.

However, the defendant's suicide claim has been dismissed by a medical expert.

Professor Christopher Milroy told Newcastle Crown Court on Wednesday that the explanation that Mrs Waters had smothered herself was not "credible".

He said: "If this was possible then anyone who sleeps on their stomach with their face in the pillow would be in danger of asphyxiating themselves and that just doesn't happen.

"There is an in-built defence mechanism within us to stop that happening."

The court also heard that due to Mrs Waters' ill health, she may have been too frail to resist and a postmortem examination would have been unable to establish whether she had been smothered or not.

The trial continues.