Eileen Pearson was "dirty and severely emaciated" when taken to LGI

A civilian police worker from Leeds accused of killing her mother by gross negligence has told a jury she "loved her dearly" and had never meant to hurt her.

Eileen Pearson, 82, was "dirty and severely emaciated" when her body was taken to Leeds General Infirmary last May by her daughter Angela, Preston Crown Court has heard.

It is alleged West Yorkshire Police employee Pearson, 53, failed to provide adequate food, nourishment and care to her mother and failed to summon timely medical help.

Police were alerted following Mrs Pearson's death and visited her home in Fairway, Guiseley, where her daughter was also living at the time, and found that the house was in "extreme squalor" and "uninhabitable".

Giving evidence, Pearson - a prosecution team officer at West Yorkshire Police's Leeds Criminal Justice Support Unit - told the court of her upbringing as an only child.

Her barrister, Andrew Stubbs QC, asked her: "Did you love your mother?"

"I loved her dearly," she replied. "She was my life, I just cannot believe this is happening."

"Did you ever mean to hurt her?" asked Mr Stubbs. She said: "Absolutely not."

Pearson took her dead mother to the hospital's A&E department shortly after 10.30pm on May 10 last year. She told medical staff her mother, who weighed just 5st 7lb, was "unresponsive" but they immediately recognised she was dead.

The Crown says she was the sole carer of her mother who died as a result of the combined effect of malnutrition, Parkinson's disease and infected pressure sores, and that she did not seek help because she was "ashamed" at her condition and the state the house was in.

Pearson denies manslaughter by gross negligence.