Updated: A POSTMASTER accused of bludgeoning his wife to death wept in court as a neighbour described the scene in the couple’s bedroom after being called to help.

Pauline Dye told Teesside Crown Court how Robin Garbutt had ran next door to get her. She went with him into the house he shared with his wife, Diana, and found her face down in bed.

She said Mrs Garbutt’s hair was matted with blood, there was blood between her fingers and her face was buried in a blood-soaked pillow.

Garbutt, 45, formerly of Huby and York, is alleged to have hit Diana, 40, who grew up in Eggborough, on the head with a metal bar between 2.30am and 4.30am on March 23 last year.

He has denied murdering his wife, and told police he was held up at gunpoint by an intruder at the post office and shop in Melsonby, near Richmond.

Mrs Dye described what she saw when she was called over to the Garbutts’ house.

Under questioning from David Hatton QC, prosecuting, she said: “There was blood on the pillow. I could see blood in her hair. I couldn’t see her face at all. I touched her on her leg. Her leg was slightly warm. Robin said she was warm. We didn’t know what to do.”

Mrs Dye said the emergency services had instructed Garbutt by telephone to turn over his wife’s body in order to take her pulse. He was unable to find her pulse.

She said Mrs Garbutt’s chest had turned blue. “I was feeling her right hand. She felt coldish.”

Michael Whitaker, a paramedic, told the court there was no “electrical activity” in her heart and her arm was “solid” with rigor mortis.

He said: “I assumed that the lady had been deceased for quite some time.” He told Jamie Hill QC, defending, that he could not say how long she had been dead for.

Earlier yesterday, customers told the jury how they went into the shop on the morning of Mrs Garbutt’s death prior to the alarm being raised. Dorothy Cole said Garbutt had seemed “his usual self and he seemed relaxed” when she visited the shop.

When she returned home shortly after 8.40am, she had heard sirens from emergency services rushing past her home. Another customer, Angela Wood, said Garbutt had seemed tired.

The trial continues.