IS he really the killer of grandmother Georgina Edmonds?

That was the question posed to jurors this morning by barrister Tim Mousley QC as he opened the defence case of accused murderer Matthew Hamlen at Winchester Crown Court.

He described the killing of Georgina Edmonds as a "whodunit" but said that unlike an Agatha Christie story there was not a number of suspects to choose from.

He went on to suggest to jurors that "it doesn't stack up" and was "fanciful" for the prosecution to imply it was Hamlen, a man "so laden with debt he was driven to kill".

He said: "Whoever killed Mrs Georgina Edmonds committed a vile and brutal offence. There were repeated deliberate wounds to her over a period of time. We are not concerned in this case with a momentary act of violence, it's something considerably more vile and brutal than that."

Mr Mousley went in to say how what happened on the day of the murder on January 11, 2008, in Mrs Edmonds home in Kiln Lane, Brambridge, "remains a mystery".

He asked jurors to be sure that the motive for battering the 77 year old to death was actually for money and not someone who purposely made it look like that "to shift the blame".

Talking about Hamlen, who he described as having been "incarcerated" behind a glass screen in the court, he added: "I submit that this killing takes a certain type of person. You need to ask yourself does he really have it in him to commit such a terrible act if violence for just a few hundred pounds."

Hamlen, 33, of Hamilton Road, Bishopstoke, denies murder.