Family 'executed in cold-blood'

Kesha, her mother and her brother were found dead

A mother and her two children were bludgeoned to death with a hammer in a cold-blooded "execution", a jury heard.

Pierre Williams, 33, is accused of murdering Beverley Samuels, 36, her daughter Kesha Wizzart, 18, and son Fred Wizzart, 13, in July last year.

The bodies of Mrs Samuels and her children were found at their Thelwall Avenue home in Fallowfield, Manchester.

The prosecution told Manchester Crown Court that a 2lb hammer was used on the victims. Mr Williams denies murder.

Mr Williams had previously been the on-off boyfriend of Mrs Samuels for about a year before they broke up in 2006.

Prosecutor Ray Wigglesworth QC told the jury of five women and seven men that they needed to consider whether Williams had a "propensity to violence towards women".

The jury heard that he sexually assaulted Beverley Samuels, a nurse at Manchester Royal Infirmary, and her daughter Kesha before beating them to death.

The body of Fred Wizzart was found nearby.

Pierre Williams was arrested by police in Birmingham

The hammer was found at the scene. Mr Wigglesworth told the jury the deaths were "execution-style murders".

A post-mortem examination revealed that Mrs Samuels and her children had died of head injuries.

The jury was shown police video footage of the gruesome scene they found. The judge had earlier warned jurors to steel themselves for some unpleasant evidence.

Mrs Samuels lived with her son Fred at Thelwall Avenue, while Kesha lived with their father - also called Fred Wizzart - in Heaton Mersey, Cheshire.

Kesha had chosen to sleep at her mother's on the night she died after returning from London on a late train.

The children's father described his former partner as "a very outgoing person... with a good personality".

'Disjointed relationship'

He described his son Fred as a typical teenager, into music, clothes, friends and tinkering with bikes.

He said their daughter Kesha was talented and hardworking with the prospect of a bright future.

She had finished her A-levels at Parrs Wood High School in Didsbury a few weeks earlier, had sung on the ITV talent show Young Stars in Their Eyes.

She had been accepted to read law at the University of Manchester, and it was her ambition to become a barrister.

Mrs Samuels first met Mr Williams a year after breaking up with Mr Wizzart.

It was a "disjointed, intermittent relationship" which lasted for a year, the court heard.

Despite breaking up in September 2006 the defendant, who lived in Birmingham, had a habit of turning up "uninvited and unannounced" at Mrs Samuels' home.

Mr Williams was arrested on suspicion of murder by police in Birmingham.

The case continues.