Dewsbury woman who battered mum to death loses appeal

Jun 30 2009 By Huddersfield Examiner

A WOMAN who claimed she was hearing voices in her head when she battered her pensioner mum to death with a rolling pin has lost an appeal against her murder conviction.

Julie Holderness, 49, of Frances Road, Earlseaton, Dewsbury, was convicted at Leeds Crown Court in October 2003 of murdering 70-year-old widow, Betty Wright.

Mrs Wright suffered 69 injuries in a frenzied and horrific attack with a marble rolling pin at her home in Walnut Drive, Chickenley, near Dewsbury, in February 2003.

Yesterday her drug-using daughter appealed against her conviction on the basis of new evidence which has emerged since the trial about the state of her mental health at the time of the killing.

But the Appeal Court judges said the appeal would be dismissed.

Her barrister, Pete Weatherby, told the Court of Appeal that the new evidence had emerged while Holderness has been undergoing treatment for her mental health problems.

Since her conviction, she has been shown to suffer from a severe mental illness, which some experts suggest may have been in existence at the time of the murder and would have provided her with a valid defence of "diminished responsibility".

Consultant psychiatrist, Dr Christopher Green, appearing in court, said he considered the illness definitely went back as far as 2002 and possibly "considerably earlier".