A MAN previously acquitted of the murder of a Hampshire grandmother has gone on trial for a second time accused of carrying out the brutal killing.

Matthew Hamlen appeared in the dock at Winchester Crown Court where jurors were told he was being retried for allegedly battering 77-year-old Georgina Edmonds to death.

Judge Mr Justice Saunders told the jury how laws once preventing anyone being tried twice for murder had since been abolished by parliament, but that they must reach their verdict only based on the evidence they hear in this trial.

Mrs Edmonds was found lying face down in a pool of blood in the kitchen of her Brambridge cottage on the evening of Friday January 11, 2008.

Prosecutor Michael Bowes QC told how her son Harry Edmonds made the gruesome discovery as he returned home to the family estate in Kiln Lane that evening.

The court was told how he arrived home from work to find his mothers home, on the banks of the River Itchen, unusually in darkness and when he failed to raise her by phone he climbed inside through an unlocked sash window.

In the kitchen he saw Mrs Edmonds legs on the floor and, as he pushed the kitchen door, saw her body lying face down, her head surrounded in a pool of blood.

The court was told how the pensioner had been battered with a blunt instrument which the prosecution say was a marble rolling pin that was found lying, broken and bloodstained, near her body.

Before she died she had been repeatedly stabbed across her body and her trousers had also been pulled down revealing her underwear, although there was no evidence of sexual assault Mr Bowes said Harry could see a "pinkish dent" to the back of his mothers head and told jurors: "It was obvious to him that she was dead and obvious, really, that she had been murdered."

The court heard how Mrs Edmonds mobile phone, cash card and bag had been taken from the scene and an attempt was made later that night to withdraw money from a cash machine.

It is the prosecutions case that the pensioner had been tortured by whoever killed her, in order to obtain her cash card number.

The jury was told how Hamlen was arrested more than two years after the murder, in June 2010.

In February 2014 a detailed assessment of forensic evidence was carried out.

The jury heard how DNA had been retrieved from the back left sleeve of Mrs Edmonds blouse and experts said the results matched the DNA profile of Hamlen.

The court was told how it was 26 million times more likely that the DNA is that of Hamlen than of someone unrelated to him.

Mr Bowes told how a post-mortem was carried out on Mrs Edmonds' body by home office pathologist Dr Hugh White.

He found that the main cause of her death was "blunt force" head injuries but there were also a series of stab wounds to her head, neck, chest and abdomen as well as her upper back.

All of the wounds were inflicted with a knife but only two of them would have caused serious injury, he added.

Images of the pensioners body and the wounds and puncture marks she suffered were shown to the jury in bundles placed before them. They included a featured skull and a number of broken ribs.

As he completed his opening speech to jurors, Mr Bowes told how during the course of the evidence in the trial they would hear in detail of a whispered conversation between Hamlen and his mum while he was being held by police for the murder.

This, he claimed, was the moment when Hamlen attempted to fix himself an alibi for the hours after the killing.

He told the court how in the recording 36-year-old Hamlen can be heard describing what was happening to him as a "witch hunt" as he told his mother what he was being asked by detectives.

He went on to tell her "I might have an alibi for it as well" adding that he may have been at a party with friends.

During interviews with police Hamlen denied murdering Mrs Edmonds but said he may have been in the area of her home while walking his dog on the day she was killed.

Completing his opening speech, Mr Bowes told jurors: "The evidence paints a compelling albeit terrible picture".

Hamlen, 36, who lived in The Crescent at the time of the killing, denies a charge of murder. Proceeding.

PANEL AT the time of her murder Mrs Edmonds lived alone in Fig Tree Cottage, in the grounds of Kingfisher Lodge which was home to her son Harry Edmonds, his wife and their children.

She had undergone a number of hip replacement operations and was also suffering with osteoporosis so didn't travel far, the court heard.

However she remained active - regularly walking her two cocker spaniel dogs and driving and shopping locally.

The court heard how the property, on the banks of the river, was bought by Mrs Edmonds late husband in 1971.

After he died, she continued to live in the main house until 2001 when she moved across to the cottage feeling the main house was too large for her needs, Mr Bowes said.

On the morning of her murder she had been visited at home by her hairdresser, who turned out to be the last person who would see her alive.