COLE: ACCUSED WINE BOTTLE KILLER SAYS SHE LEFT PENSIONER WATCHING TV

A mum-of-three accused of battering a 91-year-old man to death with a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape told a court: ‘I haven’t done anything.’

Melanie Cole, 49, said she ‘didn’t know jack sh*t’ about the murder of widower William Reilly in his own home, four days after Christmas last year.

She admitted she had been to see the elderly man and wish him a ‘happy New Year’ on December 29, but claimed she left before he was brutally attacked in his bedroom.

Fighting back tears, Cole told the Old Bailey: ‘Mr Reilly was the only one what (sic) really knew his attacker but now he is dead and no-one knows.’

She said she had drunk a can of Strongbow with the pensioner, who was registered blind and almost completely deaf, before leaving him on his own.

He had been watching television in the lounge, it was said.

Asked if she attacked Mr Reilly, Cole said: ‘No I didn’t.’

Asked how he was when she left him, she added: ‘He was the same way as when I saw him.’

Prosecutors allege Cole attacked Mr Reilly, a father of three, for the few pounds he kept in his coat as she was desperate for drink and drugs

He suffered multiple skull and facial fractures after being clubbed over the head with a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape and a bottle of dry orange curacao liqueur.

He was found by his eldest son James sitting on the edge of his bed, covered in blood, and died a week later on hospital by inhaling his own vomit, after developing pneumonia.

Cole had previously stolen cash from the old man, who she had met in a pub close to his home in Tottenham, north London, and would turn up announced, the court has heard.

Mr Reilly had called her the ‘bottle pincher’ after she had taken a whisky bottle containing loose change from the house, some 18 months before his death.

She admitted taking the bottle on a previous visit and accepted James Reilly, known as Seamus, had asked her to stay away from the house.

Explaining why she had decided to go back to see the Reillys, she told the court: ‘I wanted to go there to say happy new year. I hadn’t seen them for a long time.

‘I just wanted to see Seamus and see if we could get back to how it was.’

The court heard she had been clean from drink and crack cocaine after a six month stay in a rehabilitation clinic earlier in the year, but had relapsed in November.

She said she would drink six cans of cider a day and had tried to take an overdose of pills with alcohol several weeks before Mr Reilly’s death.

It is alleged Cole took between £30 and £80 from her helpless victim after rifling through his coat pockets and leaving him for dead.

Mr Reilly had lived with his family in (55) Tower Gardens, Tottenham, since 1977.

He had retired as a builder aged 78, but lost his wife a year later.

The pensioner lived with his son James, but was also assisted by carers who visited him three times a day.

Mr Reilly’s friend Carol Palmer was with him when Cole arrived at the house at 5pm.

She later tried to call again at the house, but did not get an answer at the front door.

James Reilly returned to the house around 6pm with a friend after running several errands to be met with an ‘appalling sight’ of his father severely injured.

He told his son: ‘It’s your fault, a white woman has given me a mauling.’

Mr Reilly was rushed to the Royal London hospital, where it was discovered he had multiple skull and facial fractures and a broken jaw.

Over the following days he developed a chest infection and subsequently died. A post mortem gave the cause of death and pneumonia and blunt force traumatic head injury.

A pathologist noted 20 separate injuries to his head and face, which were consistent with at least three blows with a heavy object.

At the scene, police found the wine and spirits bottles were both heavily bloodstained.

Scientists also found traces of Cole’s DNA on the liqueur bottle.

A full DNA profile was also found on a cigarette end found in the living room and the mouthpiece of an open can of Strongbow cider left in the kitchen.

The lining of Mr Reilly’s brown jacket which hung on his zimmer frame had been pulled out and was also bloodstained and the killer had made attempts to clean the blood from their hands in the kitchen sink.

Cole, of [85] Culford Road, Hackney, east London, denies murder.

The trial continues.