Murder accused ‘helped himself to cash from widow’s handbag’, court told

A man accused of murdering a pensioner in her bungalow 12 years ago allegedly helped himself to money from her handbag and was seen the following day spending money playing a fruit machine, a court has heard.

David Newton, now aged 70, was on state benefits in 2013 and that was his only source of regular income, prosecutor John Price told Cambridge Crown Court.

The defendant, of Magazine Close, Wisbech, denies murdering 86-year-old widow Una Crown at her home in Magazine Lane in the Cambridgeshire town on January 12 2013.

Mrs Crown was found with her throat cut, four stab wounds to her chest and her clothing set on fire.

Her niece’s husband had gone to collect her for Sunday lunch on January 13 2013 when her body was discovered in her hallway.

Mr Price said police found that the only cash in Mrs Crown’s handbag was some silver coins, and her niece, Judith Payne, said it was “not enough even to pay the paper man”.

Mrs Payne said in a statement read to jurors that Mrs Crown “would have had notes so I would have expected to see some as she would usually get cash back from Tesco on a Friday”.

Mr Price said police established that Mrs Crown had got £40 cash during a visit to Tesco on January 11.

He said she had a hairdresser’s appointment on January 16 and “she was going for a perm on that day – the usual cost was £40”.

The prosecutor said the Tesco visit was the first card transaction on Mrs Crown’s account since Christmas Eve 2012.

Mr Price said it is alleged that Newton “murdered Una Crown and helped himself to cash of hers found in her handbag”.

He said the balance on one of Newton’s two accounts on January 11 was £74.62.

Mr Price said Newton’s other account’s “only function was to receive a fortnightly payment of benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions which was then always immediately fully withdrawn in cash”.

The last time this happened before the weekend of Mrs Crown’s death was on January 4 2013, he said.

But the prosecutor said Newton attended Wisbech Ex-Servicemen’s Club once on January 12 and twice on January 13, which was recorded on an entry fob and CCTV.

He said Newton was “spending freely” on January 13, playing the fruit machine on his two visits, and “on many occasions, being seen more than once to exchange notes at the bar for bags of coins”.

Mr Price said that on January 12 Newton “played a fruit machine at the club just once”.

Newton paid £80 into his Nationwide account on January 14, the prosecutor said, the first cash credit paid in for 15 months, since October 2011.

Mr Price said the defendant spent a “lot of time” on the phone on the afternoon and evening of the day it is alleged he murdered Mrs Crown – January 12 2013.

He had made a call to his late sister, Pamela Clark, who at the time was 63.

Her granddaughter, Charlotte Clark, who was with her at the time, said her grandmother told her it had been Newton and that he “was pissed and that he was crying”, adding “she said that he had asked to come round for a drink”, the prosecutor said.

Mr Price said the defendant had made a separate call to his aunt, Constancia Kirk-Hall, then aged 79, and “said he had some special massage oil which he could massage on for her” to treat a painful elbow.

“She felt very uncomfortable with this suggestion and told him he wasn’t needed,” the prosecutor said.

“He told her he could be round in quarter of an hour.”

Mr Price said DNA evidence is the “nucleus of the case”.

Male DNA, the profile of which matches that of Newton, was discovered by scientists in 2023 on nail clippings that had been taken from the fingers and thumb of Mrs Crown’s unburned right hand at a post-mortem examination in 2013, Mr Price said.

The prosecutor said in 2023 scientists “combined all five clippings from the right hand”.

“Normally when testing scientists prefer if possible to preserve some of the exhibit, as had been done in 2013,” said Mr Price.

“But now it was decided the time had come to combine them all and so to maximise the chances of achieving a reportable result.

“Furthermore, techniques continue to improve and had done so since 2013.

“This also increased the chances.”

He said it was calculated that it was around 28,000 times more likely that the DNA profile originated from Newton or a close paternal-line male relative of his than an unknown male individual.

Some of Newton’s close male relatives were excluded from being a match through DNA testing.

Non-scientific inquiries were also made, gathering details of where four brothers of Newton and one first cousin lived at the time and other questions.

Mr Price said Newton was the “only realistic candidate who’s left”.

He said only Newton lived a “stone’s throw” from Mrs Crown’s bungalow and there was no other evidence to connect the other men to Mrs Crown “other than indirectly through their brother David”.

“There is no evidence they were seen in or anywhere near Magazine Lane that Saturday night,” said Mr Price.

“And there is no evidence any of them was drunk that Saturday night and pestering elderly women on the telephone.

“And there is no other evidence suggesting any of them suddenly acquired some cash that weekend and were able to go out entertaining themselves more often than was usual.”

Mr Price said jurors “will need to consider” whether “on the night Una Crown was murdered had David Newton let himself into her house using a key to her back kitchen door which he had illicitly acquired from Anglia Locksmiths”.

The trial continues.