A jury has retired to consider verdicts in the trial of a man accused of murdering elderly businessman Roy Blackman at his Biddenden home.

Mechanic Mark Love is also alleged to have been part of a gang that carried out a violent burglary a month before at the home of champion clay pigeon marksman George Digweed.

The jury of seven men and five women started deliberations at the end of the trial at Maidstone Crown Court lasting almost three weeks.

They heard Mr Blackman, a garage owner and bird breeder, was brutally beaten to death before burglars fled with a safe containing between £100,000 and £250,000.

Prosecutor Simon Taylor said the killing was carried out by the same gang that burgled Mr Digweed’s home in Northiam, Rye.

Mr Blackman was punched, kicked, stamped on and stripped naked at his chalet bungalow in Headcorn Road.

Prosecutor Simon Taylor said another man, William Smith - who was shot dead by police - was also involved in the offences.

“It may well have been, had he been alive, William Smith would have been in the dock alongside Mr Love,” he said.

“Mark Love was involved in both of them. Serious violence was used against the occupants.

“There is one key difference between the allegations. Tragically, violence in the second offence led to the death of the occupant - Roy Blackman, a 73-year-old widower beaten to death in his own home.

“Mercifully, the victims of the earlier burglary didn’t suffer such an extreme fate, although significant injuries were sustained by the male occupant.”

Mr Taylor said DNA from both Love, of Frittenden Road, Staplehurst, and Smith, who was 36, was found at the scene of both crimes.

Mr Blackman was killed at Heartsay Bungalow during the night of March 20.

It was believed he was attacked after interrupting the burglars. His home was “comprehensively ransacked” as they searched for valuables.

“Both Mr Love and Mr Smith left deposits of their DNA at the scene of the crime,” said Mr Taylor. “It was in circumstances which were otherwise inexplicable.”

Love’s DNA was found on a glove and on a tap in the upstairs bathroom. Smith’s DNA was on a bottle of cleaning fluid in the lounge.

The burglars had run a bath to wash items in an attempt to destroy scientific evidence.

Smith, from Golford, near Cranbrook, and Love soon afterwards went on a shopping spree at designer outlet McArthurGlen in Ashford.

After Love’s arrest the interior of a white Astra van associated with him at a lock-up at Porkpie Farm in Frittenden was sodden with dirty water as if it had been submerged in a lake.

Mr Digweed, 52, and his wife Kate told of their terror when four masked men smashed their way through patio doors on February 21.

He had been wearing only a towel after bathing and was left “stark naked” as he was struck on the head with one of his guns.

The gang made off with £12,000 in cash, two valuable shotguns, their Toyota Hilux truck and other items.

Mrs Digweed said it had been “like a SWAT team” entering the house.

Jurors were taken on a view of both crime scenes.

Love, 38, denied murder and aggravated burglary. He claimed in evidence he could not remember what was doing in the hours leading up to the murder because it was “just an ordinary day”.

He maintained he had never been to Mr Blackman’s home, despite his DNA being found there.