“Beaten widow left to die”

Three intruders savagely attacked frail pensioner Mrs. Winnie Love, robbing her of her savings and leaving her to die in her unheated Burton Latimer bedroom, a jury at Northampton Crown Court was told today.

Mrs. Love (75) was sleeping when three men broke into her Burton Latimer home on February 19, said Mr. B Escote-Cox, prosecuting.

“It was a terrible, brutal assault. She was savagely gagged and left to die,” he said.

Norman Washington Barned (23), Richard Gotts Gayle (17) both of Wrens Park House, Warwick Grove, London and Glen Roy Lewis (21) of Albion Road, London, pleaded guilty to manslaughter at her Station Road home on February 19.

They have denied a murder charge.

Barned pleaded not guilty to robbing Mrs. Love of £1,685 on the same date but Gayle and Lewis pleaded guilty to robbery.

Gayle and Lewis also pleaded guilty to burgling the house. Barned pleaded not guilty.

Mr. Escote-Cox said the three men journeyed up to Kettering on Monday, February 19^th, and decided to break into the house in Station Road as they were short of money. At about 10.30pm they broke into the widow’s home and savagely beat her.

“The pathologist’s report revealed that Mrs. Love must have been hit four blows on the head – two with some kind of heavy instrument. She was also brutally gagged and part of her respiratory tract was blocked. She had several fractures to the right side of her face and she died of asphyxia.”

He added that Mrs. Love was left on the cold lino floor after three defendants had ransacked the house and got away with around £1,600.

They then left the back door open and hired a taxi to take them to Kings Cross in the early hours of the morning.