Gruesome pictures of the charred remains of an elderly woman whose body was stuffed into a suitcase before being set alight were shown to a jury today.

Thea Zaudy was beaten and strangled before her frail body was crammed into a case and hauled across the London Underground before being burned in a field near Milton Common, the court heard.

The body of the 94-year-old widow was discovered by farm workers who at first mistook it for the body of a sheep.

Polish-born Jolanta Kalinowsica was said to have carried out the brutal attack on July 11, last year, after she was caught taking cash from Mrs Zaudy's home in Kensington Park Road, London, where she worked as a cleaner.

She then returned the following day with her son's girlfriend, Monilca Sienkiewicz to clean up and dispose of the corpse, the jury was told.

With the help of her son Adrian Lis, they are alleged to have folded up the body in a suitcase before being driven by Lukasz Gajda to a field to set it alight.

Nicholas Dean, prosecuting on the second day of the murder trial at Oxford Crown Court, showed the jury CCTV footage of the trio taking a suitcase on to the London Underground. He said they then put the suitcase into Gajda's silver BMW and drove it to Oxfordshire.

He also showed CCTV footage of the three defendants shopping in London, allegedly using Mrs Zaudy's Visa card.

Kalinowsica, 41, is charged with murder. Sienkiewicz, 19, faces two counts of assisting an offender, Lis, 23, and Gajda, 25, are both charged with one count of assisting an offender. Kalinowsica, Sienkiewicz and Lis, all of Cavendish Road, Ealing, West London, and Gajda, of Drayton Bridge Road, West London deny all charges.

The hearing continues.