Betty Guy trial: Grandson threatened to kill girlfriend while she slept

A former soldier accused of murdering his grandmother by smothering her later threatened to kill his girlfriend as she slept and mimed putting a pillow against his face, a court has heard.

Barry Rogers, 33, also told his grandmother, Betty Guy, 84, that if her pain got too much he would "finish her off", according to his former partner Rhianne Morris.

Rogers is on trial at Swansea Crown Court with his mother Penelope John, 50, accused of murdering the retired nurse.

John, of St Dogmaels, Pembrokeshire, is accused of feeding her mother a "cocktail of crushed tablets and alcohol" before Rogers, of Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, allegedly killed her, "probably by smothering her with an object", on November 7 2011.

The pair, who deny murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter, came under suspicion four years after Mrs Guy's death - which at the time was thought to be from natural circumstances - after an ex-partner of Rogers, told police he said he had killed his grandmother by putting a pillow over her face.

On Wednesday, Ms Morris told the jury she and Rogers got together in summer 2010.

She said: "After Betty died he was a lot angrier than he ever was before and he used to make threats and stuff.

"(He would say) 'I'll get rid of you in your sleep', 'I'll do it in your sleep, no one will know it', and as he said that he used to take a pillow off the sofa or wherever we were and hold it up to his face.

"I remember him once saying, 'I'll do to you like I did to her', but I didn't know who he meant by that or what he meant by that."

Ms Morris said she was "scared to ask him" what he meant.

She said their relationship ended after Rogers made an attempt at suicide.

She said Rogers told her about his time in the Army, that he had served on the front line in Iraq, had shot people and now suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

She said he told her he had been medically discharged because of an injury to his ankle and that "initially I believed everything", but "by the end I did wonder whether any of it was true".

Ms Morris said Rogers received a phone call from his mother between 11pm and midnight on November 6 while he was at their home in Frome, Somerset, and that she heard him ask, "It's time, is it?"

She told the court Rogers said Mrs Guy was ill and he left for Wales within the hour, but rang her later that night, waking her up.

"He said he had drunk whiskey and he was obviously upset," she said.

"I asked why he was drunk and where he had got whiskey from because I knew that Betty didn't drink.

"He said that Penny (Penelope John) had given Betty the whiskey with some tablets."

Cross-examining her, Christopher Henley QC, for Rogers, asked about the comment his client may have made about finishing his grandmother off if the pain got to be too much.

Ms Morris said: "It was just banter, it was a joke, everybody laughed."

Another of Mrs Guy's daughters, Lorraine Matthews, said she last saw her mother in April 2011.

In a statement read to the jury, Ms Matthews said: "Mum was convinced she had cancer.

"I asked her if the doctors had told her this and she said 'no'.

"She said she had pain in her knees and she could feel the cancer eating her up inside."

Ms Matthews said her mother was slightly more frail but was not gaunt or ill-looking and that after returning home she contacted Mrs Guy's GP with a view to setting up a private scan.

She said her mother was "initially keen" but when she phoned another time John was there and would not let her speak to Mrs Guy, who never had the scan "despite my efforts".

Ms Matthews said John left an answering machine message, which said: "Sorry to tell you your mum has died in the early hours of the morning."

She said she spoke to John on the phone later.

She said: "Penny said something like it was her time to go, she wasn't well ... I asked Penny why she hadn't rung us before."

Ms Matthews added that she tried to ring John to find out the details of the funeral but did not get through and had to ring local funeral homes to get the details.