Savagely beaten and left for dead

Miss Mercer, of Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, died of severe head trauma and pneumonia less than a week after she was assaulted in her own bedroom during the night of June 17, 1994.

John McGuinness, prosecuting, told the jury that passer-by Andrew Monk ran into Miss Mercer’s house on the morning of June 18 after spotting “hands waving around” at the window.

He said: “He ran up to the front door and saw Helen Mercer in a chair in the hallway, covered in blood.

“She held her hands up to him and tried to speak but he could not understand her because her mouth was filled with blood. She was spitting blood and he eventually heard her say: ‘Help me. Please help me’.”

He flagged down a passing police car, and she was rushed to Whipps Cross hospital, where she was heard to say “He tried to murder me” and “They broke in. They tried to come into my house and beat me up”.

The hellish attack left her with fractures to her nose and left cheekbone, her jaw “floating free” and cuts and bruising to her neck, left eye and upper lip.

The police recovered a bloodied palmprint from the wallpaper above her bed at the scene, but no arrests were made in the original enquiry as the identity of the palm’s owner remained unknown.

When a palmprint database was set up by police in the intervening years, the print was transferred onto the system. A “cold case” enquiry was launched in 2004, and the palm-mark was tested with improved DNA and print technology over the next couple of years.

But it was not until Ross, 39, was arrested on a minor offence that his prints were matched to the palmprint found on the 17 by 11 inch wallpaper sample taken over a decade before. He was arrested and charged with the murder on August 6 2007.

Ross, who is unemployed, denies the charge, claiming he had never been in Miss Mercer’s room at any time.

He blames the attack on burglars who had plagued Miss Mercer in the weeks before the incident, including youngsters who stole her keys from her home a few days earlier.

At the start of the trial, which is expected to last until late next week, the jury heard witness statements describing Miss Mercer as “an independent and slightly eccentric” lady who was often seen sitting on her front steps “watching the world go by”.

A statement from now-deceased neighbour William Kirk said that she left her front door open “morning, noon and night” to allow her cats in and out.

Another neighbour William Willis, who is also now dead, said: “She had no fear of calling out to complete strangers and asking them to get her some shopping or a newspaper.”

Ross admits frequently passing her house to visit his mother on the road or friends near Walthamstow Market, and claims he offered to pick up items from the shops for her. But he says she never asked for anything, and that he never entered the house.

The trial continues.