A SELF-confessed drugs dealer accused of battering to death an 80-year-old Halesowen grandmother has told a jury she was killed by a member of a three man armed gang who stole his money and drugs.

Leo Barnes, a confessed cocaine dealer, said he became fearful for his safety after spotting a car he felt was following him after he had been selling drugs and he went to the home of Cynthia Beamond.

She was a family friend and she welcomed him in and made him a cup of tea but then, when she answered a knock on the front door, the gang burst in armed with a gun and a knife.

One of the men had his hand across the mouth of mother-of-two Mrs Beamond, a widow and churchgoer, and Barnes said he was told he was going to be “jacked” - robbed -because he had been seen drug dealing.

He told the jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court today how they took away his stash of cocaine valued at £1,850 together with £380 in cash when he advised Mrs Beamond who was hysterical to make a “run for it”.

The 33-year-old said: “I got up. I felt intimidated. The shorter of the two black men - the other man was white - went into the kitchen. He had a saucepan and he hit her on the head.

“She fell to the ground but she was still conscious. She was making noises. I was then taken into the lounge and told to keep quiet.

“I could not believe what was happening. I actually felt sick. I wondered what they were going to do to me.

They were really intimidating and they threatened me with the gun and the knife.”

The father-of-one added: “I wanted to help Mrs Beamond and I wanted to get out of the house. It all happened so fast. I still feel shook up by the whole situation. The last time I saw Mrs Beamond she was still conscious.

“I did not see her being taken into the garage. I believed she was still alive. It was only after I had been arrested that someone told me she had passed on. This was someone I knew well, someone I had grown up with and I was fond of her.”

The prosecution have alleged it was Barnes who beat Mrs Beamond to death with the heavy metal saucepan before driving to London where he killed 67- year-old Philip Silverstone at his flat in the Belsize Park area the following day.

Barnes said the gang made him clean blood off the kitchen floor at Mrs Beamond’s semi-detached home in Juliet Road, Howley Grange, before he went off to sell property taken from the house to clear his debt to his drug supplier.

Barnes, of Runcorn Road, Balsall Heath, knew both the victims because his grandparents had lived near Mrs Beamond and he had also stayed in a flat near to the home of Mr Silverstone.

He said he went to the flat where he got involved in a fight with a Polish visitor to the premises and when Mr Silverstone intervened the Polish man struck him with a car jack.

“I left the flat,” said Barnes, who admitted he was bisexual having had a sexual encounter with the other Polish man.

“I did not want to be part of what was going on. When I left, Philip and the other man were still fighting.”

Barnes has denied murdering Mrs Beamond on June 27 last year and killing Mr Silverstone on June 28 and his trial is continuing.