A callous carer who battered a 90-year-old widow over the head with a stainless steel flask in a ‘cold-blooded attack’ before suffocating her after being caught stealing £40 from her handbag was today jailed for life.
Jayne Hill, 52, was one of a team of carers who were supposed to be looking after Myra Thompson at her townhouse before being suspended when a hidden camera exposed her a thief.
But on April 23, retired hospital scientist Mrs Thompson – described by neighbours as a ‘bright woman’ who was ‘not easily fooled’ – was found dead at the property in Spital, Merseyside.
A postmortem revealed that the ‘defenceless’ pensioner – who stood 5ft 3in tall and weighed just 6st 9lb – had been struck over the head with a metal flask, then asphyxiated.
Hill was today ordered to serve a minimum of 22.5 years of a life sentence behind bars. She spent 168 days on remand which will be deducted from her custodial term.
A friend of Mrs Thompson who had power of attorney made cash withdrawals on her behalf before placing the money in the victim’s handbag.
The friend suspected that money was being stolen, and with Mrs Thompson’s consent installed CCTV cameras in her home – catching Hill stealing £40 on April 12.
She was reported to police and suspended from her job at a care agency three days later.
After being arrested 12 hours after Mrs Thompson was found dead, Hill initially denied being involved, even after being told that her mobile phone had been located being used in the vicinity on the night of the killing.
However during her third interview, Hill said she had let herself into the house at around 11pm on April 22, claiming her intention was to ask Mrs Thompson to reconsider her complaint and offering to repay the money.
She crept upstairs to Mrs Thompson’s darkened bedroom at which the pensioner began shouting out in alarm, she told police.
Hill picked up a stainless steel flask beside her bed and hit her over the head in an effort to silence her, the court heard.
But that did not stop the shouting so she put a pillow over Mrs Thompson’s face until she stopped struggling.
However prosecutor Nicholas Johnson, KC, today told Liverpool Crown Court that Hill had arrived outside Mrs Thompson’s home at around 8.45pm on the night of the killing – illustrating that Hill ‘waited until Mrs Thompson had extinguished the light in her bedroom before going in’.
Saying the ‘cold-blooded attack’ involved ‘significant planning’, Mr Johnson added: ‘If she had truly intended to have a talk to Mrs Thompson with the intention suggested, then a daytime visit would have been the only reasonable time to have done it.’
He described the murder as ‘a planned attack on a defenceless woman in her own home which was motivated either by money, revenge or a desire to remove the witness to Jayne Hill’s dishonesty or a mixture of the three’.
Hill, of Upton, Wirral, maintained to police that the sum she stole from Mrs Thompson on April 12 was £40.
In July she pleaded guilty to Mrs Thompson’s murder.
She also admitted stealing jewellery from another woman she was supposedly caring for, a 97-year-old widow who had dementia.
A gold necklace which was given to the victim by her late husband was found in Hill’s car along with another necklace and a gold ring, the court heard. She had intended to pawn them all.
Mrs Thompson was last seen alive by carers at about 6pm on April 22.
Police were called shortly before 11.30am the following day after being contacted by the North West Ambulance Service.
Mrs Thompson was pronounced dead at the scene.
The ‘frail’ but ‘very alert’ pensioner used a walking frame but was able to get around her home independently, the court heard.
The role of carers was to ensure she ate and drank enough. Ray Jarvis, 78, who lives nearby, said: ‘She lived in that house for at least 30 years.
‘She was very upset when her husband Charles died a few years ago and started to go out less.
‘She bought the Daily Mail every day and did the sudoku and crossword without fail.’
Neighbours told the Liverpool Echo that Ms Thompson was a ‘well-respected member of the community’ who worked as a senior physicist at Clatterbridge Hospital before her retirement.
Valerie Morgan, 80, said: ‘She was a very nice person.
‘She was quiet and kept herself to herself. She wasn’t out and about very much, but the chap next door took her shopping often.’