THE son of a pensioner who was murdered in her home told her he was worried about her safety just hours before she was throttled by an intruder, a court heard.

Graham Bell was going to buy a security chain after hearing how former neighbour Gareth Dack had visited his mother to borrow money and returned days later.

Dack is on trial at Teesside Crown Court where he denies charges of murdering 79-year-old Norma Bell and arson - setting fire to her terraced home last April.

The prosecution claims that the out-of-work asbestos lagger, 33, tried to cause an explosion by also turning on two gas hobs in a dangerous bid to destroy evidence.

Mr Bell told a jury how he visited his elderly mother - who had fostered more than 50 children with her late husband, John - on Saturday April 2.

She explained how Dack, of Windermere Road, Hartlepool, had asked to borrow £20 a week earlier and promised to pay it back two days later - but never did.

Mr Bell told the jury of seven women and five men yesterday that she was worried about not getting the money back, but he had asked her to try to forget about it.

As he left the house in Westbourne Road at about 4pm, he told her not to open the front door to strangers or anyone she did not want to come inside.

He said: "I said 'If anyone knocks, have all your doors locked, go to the front room, look out of the bay window and if you don't recognise them shoo them away'.

"I was going to buy a lock and a chain because I was a little bit concerned. Just the fact someone had been in borrowing money who should not have been there."

The prosecution's case is that drug-user Dack was hard-up and needed money, and had gone to the pensioner's home to steal cash or items to sell for quick cash.

He is alleged to have sold for £60 a brand new 49-inch television which had been stored in the front reception room of the three-storey for Mrs Bell's grandson.

An emergency mobile phone linked to members of her family was found in the garage at the nearby home of Dack's parents, prosecutor Christopher Tehrani, QC, told the jury.

Emergency services were called to Mrs Bell's blazing home at around 8.20am on Sunday April 3, and found her dead on the floor of the rear reception room.

She had been strangled and had a ligature - an electrical cable - tightly wrapped around her neck. Clothing on her bottom half is said to have been cut.

A landline had been used three times between 11.31pm and 5.30am to call the Babestation soft porn sex line while the intruder watched it on TV, the jury has heard.

  • Proceeding