Woman denies killing grandmother

Ms Kenyon's taped conversation was played to the jury

A woman accused of smothering her grandmother has told a court she loved the elderly woman so much she would never have considered killing her.

Julie Kenyon of Dodge Holme Court, Mixenden, Halifax, is said to have confessed to the killing in a conversation secretly taped by her younger sister, Carol, five years after the death of 89-year-old Irene Waters.

Julie Kenyon, 46, told a jury on Thursday that she did admit the killing while talking to her sister.

But says it was because of the trauma she had gone through following Mrs Waters' death.

She denies murdering Mrs Waters at the home they shared in West Yorkshire, in December 1996.

Newcastle Crown Court has heard that Carol taped a conversation in which the defendant said she placed a pillow over the old woman's face until she died.

The jury has heard the transcript of the recorded conversation in a Halifax pub, which Ms Kenyon admitted was accurate.

Shocked by accusation

Ms Kenyon also revealed how her sister first accused her of murder six months after the death of Mrs Waters.

She said: "She asked me if I had killed my nan. I was shocked."

Accusations that she had killed her grandmother had continued since then and had led to psychological problems and a suicide attempt, she said.

Finally, when she met her sister in September 2001 and she asked her "the same question she always asked" - whether she had killed Mrs Waters - she said she did.

She said: "I said yes. I had had enough. I wanted her off my back. I wanted everybody off my back."

Ms Kenyon denies having anything to do with Mrs Waters' death.

"It isn't true. I couldn't do that to her. I loved her too much," she said.

The case continues.