'Their daughter's devastated': Listen to calm 999 call from friend accused of double Fentanyl murder

• Luke D'Wit was initially treated as a witness rather than a suspect - watch officers speak to him shortly after discovering the bodies of Carol and Stephen Baxter

A man accused of double murder calmly explains how a wealthy married couple were found dead at their home, as their anguished daughter screams in the background, a 999 call recording played in court reveals.

Luke D'Wit is also filmed telling officers how he had become concerned for the couple after not hearing from them for several days.

In the background of both, the couple's daughter Ellie can be heard crying in distress at the death of her parents.

"As you can hear," he tells the 999 call handler, "their daughter's devastated."

D'Wit, 34, denies two counts of murder and is standing trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.

The call recording and video footage was played to the jury as prosecutors opened their case on the first day of what is expected to be a six-week trial.

• Listen to the audio of the 999 recording played in court. Some viewers may find this content distressing

The murder trial was told by prosecutors that D'Wit had befriended the couple before poisoning them with Fentanyl - a synthetic opioid used to treat severe pain that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, and 100 times stronger than morphine.

The day after their deaths, D'Wit wrote a fake will in which he made himself the beneficiary and inheritor of their business, said prosecutor Tracy Ayling KC.

Jurors were played a six-minute audio clip in which D'Wit told the call handler that the couple's daughter Ellie had smashed her way into the conservatory after seeing that Mr and Mrs Baxter were "sitting in their armchairs, not moving".

"I don't know if it could be gas?" he speculates, struggling to make himself heard over the cries.

When asked by the operator whether Mrs Baxter was "beyond any help", D'Wit matter-of-factly replies: "Yeah, I mean, there's some blood from her mouth, she's slumped over, yellow, blue fingers, cold - they're stiff, like hard."

D'Wit then ends the call as the paramedic arrives at the house, telling the handler that Mr Baxter is in "exactly the same" state.

After the operator wishes him all the best, he hangs up.

A separate video captured on police bodycam shows D'Wit telling an officer outside the couple's home that he had become "uneasy" with the lack of communication from them in the days leading up to their deaths.

Following the discovery of the bodies, he says he gathered all of Mrs Baxter's medication in a box after being asked to do so by the first responder.

"Yeah, they like to know what people take," the officer remarks.

"Every morning she takes Levothyroxine [a medicine used to treat an under-active thyroid gland], but sometimes she forgets and she can take it six or seven times," D'Wit replies.

A post-mortem toxicology report found Fentanyl in both Mr and Mrs Baxter’s bodies.

In both cases, their stomach contents were analysed and the evidence “suggests but doesn’t conclusively show that the drug was ingested orally”, said the prosecutor.

The trial, estimated to last six weeks, continues.

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