Murder trial hears of family rows

Anne Brown's body was found lying in water last October

The uncle of a woman on trial for killing her mother and dumping her body in a burn has told a court how the two women had a strained relationship.

Michael Elliot told the High Court in Glasgow that his sister, Anne Brown, 51, often disagreed with her daughter Lisa over the care of a young child.

Lisa Brown, 21, and her boyfriend John Wilson, 25, deny murdering Anne Brown in Laigh Gree, Burnhouse, last October.

They also deny dumping her body in Clerkland Burn in North Ayrshire.

Mr Elliot, 48, told the court about the impact the death of his sister had on him and his elderly mother Vera Elliot.

The qualified chemist said: "I am doing what I have to do. I have had to pick up the pieces. I have to bury my sister and arrange her funeral.

My mum said there was elastic joining them together and it would be stretched and stretched until they bounced back together Michael Elliot

"I have had to console my mum. We have cried."

Mr Elliot told how he visited his mum and only sister several times a year from his home in England.

The prosecution asked him if he was able to form an impression about the bond between mother and daughter from his sister's perspective.

He replied: "My mum said there was elastic joining them together and it would be stretched and stretched until they bounced back together."

The court was told that Mrs Brown and her daughter had "differences" about Lisa Brown's son.

Mr Elliot said his niece would "dip in and out" of the home she shared with her mum in Laigh Gree.

Identify remains

He also told how his sister had paid off a £1,500 student debt of Lisa Brown's while she was at Glasgow University studying archaeology.

Mr Elliot said he last spoke to his sister early last October before receiving a call later that month from his mother that Anne was missing.

He travelled back to Ayrshire and was later asked to identify human remains that had been found.

Mr Elliot told the trial: "What I saw at the time, I was unable to identify. I could not be positive."

It is claimed that Lisa Brown and John Wilson struck Mrs Brown on the head and body with a blunt object or objects and that her daughter had previously "evinced malice and ill-will towards her".

Brown and Wilson are then alleged to have attempted to defeat the ends of justice by disposing of her body in the burn.

They are also accused of washing a quantity of bloodstained clothing which they wore at the time of the alleged attack.

The trial, before Judge Lord Matthews, continues.