Samantha Warna, a forensic scientist, said the blood patterns on clothes belonging to the widow's son-in-law David Hill did not support his account that he cradled the 73-year-old in his arms after finding her in a pool of blood at her bungalow on Redhill Gardens.

Hill, 48, of Lakeside Meadows, Pontefract, claims he discovered her body but denies murder.

Miss Warna told a jury at Leeds Crown Court she found a "distinct absence" of the saturated bloodstaining she would have expected to see on the front of Hill's denim jacket and polo shirt from his version of events that he held Mrs Wright's head to his chest.

Nicholas Campbell QC, prosecuting, asked her where she believed Hill would have been when Mrs Wright was attacked on the afternoon of September 27, 2006.

She replied: "He would have to be very close by. No more than a metre away on the basis of the size of blood spots seen on his clothing."

She also found no evidence of bloodstained hair swiping his clothing, which she had found on a paramedic who attended the scene.

Miss Warna said: "The blood spatter I saw was unclotted, which in my mind was more in keeping with impact into a fresh injury rather than exhalation into a build up of clotted blood."

When asked by Robert Smith QC, defending, if unclotted blood on Hill's clothing could have been exhaled by Mrs Wright while he was trying to perform CPR, she agreed – but added the blood was missing features she would have expected to find.

She said a spot of white matter found on the back on Hill's polo shirt, in her opinion, could have been "cast off an object which was being swung overhead".

The court heard that from blood found in the bungalow, Mrs Wright had been subjected to a sustained attack – lasting two to three minutes – which started in or near the living room.

Miss Warna said she was struck while standing near her breakfast bar and while on her knees or stooping near the sink, ovens and fridge, where she ended up lying on the floor.

She said blood spatter near the fridge suggested Mrs Wright was struck again as she lay and bled profusely from her injuries.

She told the court the grandma-of-five was later moved so her head was propped against a unit in a different corner of the kitchen.

Miss Warna estimated that Mrs Wright's attacker struck her at least eight times and would have been bloodstained.

She said forensic experts searched the bungalow for the weapon that was used, and had sent some items for further tests - including a white resin elephant ornament on the mantlepiece in the living room.

She said when they recovered the elephant it was "quite dusty in the grooves" and "wasn't in keeping with it having been used to strike Mrs Wright."

She told the court other ornaments in the mantlepiece and around the house appeared to be in pairs.

Proceeding.

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