Hilda Lockert death: New DNA technique used to solve 2001 killing

Hilda Lockert died in hospital two weeks after being attacked

A man has been found guilty of killing a pensioner 20 years ago after new DNA techniques linked him to the crime.

Junior Young, 39, was convicted at the Old Bailey of the manslaughter of Hilda Lockert, 86, who was robbed in Brixton, south London, on 30 April 2001.

The prosecution said two attackers forced Ms Lockert to the ground and ran off with a wallet, containing just £15, a shopping bag and her bus pass.

The defendant, from Brixton, will be sentenced on 20 December.

Ms Lockert was taken to hospital having suffered a leg fracture and died two weeks later from a resulting blood clot, the court heard.

Prosecutor Edward Brown QC described Hilda as a "lively" lady who was very independent and able to do all her own shopping and housework.

"It was a very nasty mugging of an elderly lady on her own and involved significant violence," he said.

2001 arrest

The 4ft 11in tall (1.5m) victim was "completely at the mercy of her robbers", he added.

Before her death, Hilda had described being pulled to the ground by two boys.

She told a neighbour she had seen one wearing a bobble hat and the other a baseball cap.

A police officer who followed the route the robbers used to escape discovered her discarded shopping bag, Mr Brown said.

Young had been arrested aged 18 in 2001, but told police he had no reason to visit Langport House where Ms Lockert lived.

No charges were brought against anyone at the time.

DNA breakthrough

However, in 2015 a forensic scientist re-examined samples taken from the handles of the shopping bag, the jury was told.

Using the extremely sensitive Low Copy Number DNA method he concluded the sample taken from the bag was one billion times more likely to have come from the defendant, Hilda Lockert and another unrelated person, than from Hilda Lockert and two other unrelated people.

The court also heard that Young had two previous convictions for robbery in 1999 and 2001.

The second robbery had been committed just weeks after that of Ms Lockert and involved the defendant grabbing a 51-year-old female driver by the throat to reach her handbag and then punching her in the face.

Giving evidence, Young suggested his DNA could have been transferred onto the shopping bag from the real culprit.

But he refused to name anyone else who might have been the robber who transferred his DNA.

Police said after the trial that, in memory of the 86-year-old, Hilda Lockert Walk in north Brixton had been named after her.