Pair on trial for murder of elderly couple in Mansfield

The jury in the trial of a husband and wife accused of murdering an elderly couple from Nottinghamshire has retired to consider its verdict.

Susan & Christopher Edwards deny killing her parents Patricia and William Wycherley over the Mayday Bank Holiday weekend in 1998.

Last October - following a tip-off to police - the remains of the Wycherleys were discovered buried in the back garden of their home at Forest Town in Mansfield.

Post mortem examinations revealed they'd both been shot twice by a revolver.

Susan Edwards admits the manslaughter of her mother.

She & Christopher Edwards have also pleaded guilty to obstructing the coroner in the execution of their duty by burying the bodies.

They've also admitted theft of a credit balance from a bank account.

The trial at Nottingham crown court continues.

A woman has described the moment she shot her mother. She says it happened after she was told she had been an unwanted child.

Susan Edwards - along with her husband Christopher - is accused of killing her parents and burying their bodies in the back garden of their house in Mansfield. They deny murder.

She told Nottingham Crown Court that she went into a bedroom at her parents' house after hearing a loud noise when she was staying there one bank holiday in 1998. She said her father was lying on the floor and her mother was standing with a gun in her hand.

Her mother - Patricia Wycherley - threw the gun on the bed and Susan Edwards picked it up, the court heard. Susan Edwards then described how her mother told her she she was an unwanted child and and that she and her husband has both wanted her to have an abortion.

Susan Edwards told the court:

"She said I was an unwanted child, she wanted an abortion, they both wanted an abortion.

She told me she knew that my father abused me. At some point she threw the gun on the bed.

I picked it up.

She kept going on an on and I asked her to stop saying these things.

I asked her, please stop saying these things, will you go away. She didn't. She kept on and on."

Her mother also told her that she had slept with her husband, Christopher.

Susan Edwards said she pulled the trigger more than once.

She said she dragged the bodies under the bed and covered them with a duvet.

Later she wrapped the gun and bullet casings in a towel, put it in two plastic bags and then put it in the emptiest bin she could find, she said.

She also went to her mother's bank and withdrew about £40,000 pounds in cash and cheques. She said she also did a money transfer by using a signed letter of authorisation she had received from her mother who had told she she wanted her to have her money.

Later that day she says she caught a coach back home to London.

Susan Edwards denies murdering her parents who were found buried in their back garden. She told a court today that she hated her father for abusing her and being violent towards her. William and Patricia Wycherley were found buried in the garden of their house in Mansfield in Nottinghamshire.

Prosecutors say Susan Edwards and her husband Christopher shot the couple in 1998 but pretended they were still alive and collected almost a quarter of a million pounds in pensions and from selling their house.

She was asked by her barrister what her attitude to her father was as a child and as a young woman.

"I hated him," she said.

She was asked what the reason was.

"Mainly the abuse and he was violent as well," she said.

Susan Edwards and Christopher both deny murder.

Christopher Edwards has told the jury at Nottingham Crown Court that when he and his wife went to France last year they never intended to "hide there forever" and that they "could not sustain things anymore".

He says that they eventually returned to the UK because they had run out of money.

More to follow...

Christopher Edwards has told the jury at Nottingham Crown Court that when his wife, Susan Edwards, told him she had shot dead her mother, he wanted to go to the police but agreed not to when she became stressed.

Edwards claims she became agitated and that she said:

Christopher Edwards has told the jury at Nottingham Crown Court that his wife told him how, when she was a teenager, she wrote a letter to the former Liverpool boss Bill Shankly and that she received a reply inviting her to meet him at the Cumberland Hotel in London.

He told the court that Susan Edwards also told him she had correspondence with the actor Gerard Depardieu, but that over the last few days he has come to believe the letters she received were actually written by her.

A man accused of killing an elderly couple & burying them in the back garden has began giving evidence at Nottingham Crown Court.

Christopher Edwards and his wife Susan Edwards are charged with the murders of her parents William & Patricia Wycherley.

Their remains were found buried in the back garden of their former home on Blenheim Close, at Forest Town in Mansfield, last October. Both had been shot twice in the upper body.

Christopher Edwards told the jury that he did not gun down his parents-in-law in cold blood.

When asked by his barrister if he planned - with his wife Susan Edwards - to kill the Wycherley's, he replied "I did not".

The Edwards deny murder. More to follow...

Forensic pathologist, Dr Stuart Hamilton, is giving evidence at the trial of two people accused of murdering an elderly couple from Nottinghamshire.

Dr Hamilton tells the jury he carried out preliminary examinations of the remains of William and Patricia Wycherley, who were found buried in the back garden of their home on Blenheim Close, Forest Town in Mansfield, last October.

He has told the jury he believed Patricia and William Wycherley died from gunshots wounds, and that the bullets recovered from their bodies entered them from the front.

Patricia Wycherley's daughter, Susan Edwards, and her husband Christopher Edwards are accused of their murders.

Both deny the charge. The trial at Nottingham crown court continues.

Vivian Steenson - the niece of William Wycherley and cousin of Susan Edwards - has taken to the witness stand.

Phil Brewster is reporting for ITV News Central. More to follow...

Forensic scientist Khaldoun Kabbani has told the jury at Nottingham Crown Court that the lines and grooves found on the four bullets recovered from the bodies of William and Patricia Wycherley are consistent with being fired from a Colt Commando revolver.

Phil Brewster is reporting for ITV News Central. More to follow...