Drugs behind double murder, claims QC

Crack cocaine could have driven a Polish man to murder the next door neighbours of his sister, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

Ireneusz Bartnowski battered and stabbed to death 80-year-old Giuseppe Massaro and his 77-year-old wife Caterina with a hammer and knife, the jury was told.

The 21-year-old, who had a previous conviction for burglary in Poland, has admitted breaking into the house in Woden Road, Park Village, where the bodies were found in a back bedroom on April 22 last year, the day after the murders.

He has also confessed to being in the property when the pair were killed. But Bartnowski has claimed that fellow Pole Wojciech Ostolski, 32, killed the couple.

Ostolski is accused of handling property stolen from the homes of the victims but is not charged with their murders. Bartnowski's fingerprints were discovered in a dozen different places inside the home of Mr and Mrs Massaro after their deaths, the court heard.

He had been staying next door with his sister and her family during a visit to England, for eight days before the murder, the jury was told.

Prosecutor Peter Grieves-Smith QC said in his closing speech yesterday: "Why did Bartnowski agree to commit that burglary on the house of people he would have seen and he knew played with his nephews and nieces?

"It can only be because he was desperate.

"He says he was taking crack cocaine, and that lies behind what happened."

Mr Grieves-Smith added: "What chance did Mr and Mrs Massaro have if they'd have seen and recognised the face of Bartnowski?"

Bartnowski, officially of no fixed address despite having lived for several days before the murder with his sister in Woden Road, pleads not guilty to the murders of Mr and Mrs Massaro.

Ostolski of Chervil Rise, Heath Town, denies handling stolen property. The case continues.