Neighbours of murdered pensioners Robert and Elsie Crook have told how their son never made eye contact or spoke to them.

Timothy Crook, 44, is accused of savagely beating his 83-year-old father and 76-year-old mother to death at their Thames Avenue home in Greenmeadow last July.

Giving evidence at Bristol Crown Court yesterday neighbour Josephine Collins, who had lived next door to the tragic couple for 11 years, said: “They were quite a private couple, devoted to each other. I saw Timothy from time to time. He didn’t pass the time of day with us.

“He never made eye contact and never spoke to us.

“Bob would go out every morning to get his paper.

“I last saw them on the Thursday before.

I saw them going into the front door.

“I didn’t see anybody next door on Saturday. I don’t think I saw their car either and it probably was unusual.”

Her husband Nigel Collins said he had found two black bin bags dumped in his garden near the fence bordering the Crooks’ property on Monday, July 9.

Crook is alleged to have killed his parents between July 6 and 12, 2007.

Mr Collins said: “After I mowed the lawn I was looking for a bag to put the cuttings in and went to the bottom of the garden and sure enough there were two bags there unexpectedly. I couldn’t understand why someone would bring two black bags into my garden.”

Mr Collins said he also saw three more bags outside the front of the Crooks’ house.

Mrs Collins looked inside the bags.

“She mentioned that there were clothes in one of the bags,” said Mr Collins.

“They looked as though they had just been washed.”

He said he did not notice the bags when he had been in his garden on the Sunday evening.

Mr Collins said he did not see his neighbours’ new Nissan Micra car parked outside the property after Saturday, July 7.

“Nothing seemed odd on that Saturday,” said Mr Collins.

“On Sunday afternoon at about 4pm to 5pm I picked up a cigarette butt off next door’s drive. At that point I’m fairly sure there wasn’t a car there.

“My wife mentioned Bob and Elsie must be away. She said the car wasn’t there and the curtains were drawn at the front.

“They were just an elderly couple in their retired years, that’s all I could describe them as. They definitely seemed to be a close couple.

“I had never seen or heard arguments coming from the neighbours.”

Crook has been judged unfit to plead by Mr Justice Roderick Evans after assessments by three psychiatric consultants and therefore the trial will establish only whether it was Crook who committed the crime.

Timothy Crook is currently at Rampton Secure Psychiatric hospital.

He has been watching the trial for the double murder of his parents by video link.

Three psychiatrists assessed Crook to be unfit to plead to the offences.

But judge Mr Justice Roderick Evans ordered the trial to establish only if it was Crook who committed the crime.

Robert, 83, and Elsie, 76, Crook were savagely beaten with a hammer and strangled at their home in Thames Avenue.

The couple’s bodies were transported in their own car and dumped in the open in the garden of Crook’s house in Lincoln.

Their bodies were found, four days after they were last seen, on July 11, 2007.

On Monday, Martin Meeke QC prosecuting told the court: “For some years Timothy had lived with them and had a difficult past.

“After a time when he had been estranged from his parents he got back in contact and went back to live with them.

“But it was not a happy arrangement.”

Giving evidence Crook’s sister Janice Lawrence said: “He would be unkind to them, domineer them and control them, the language was terrible.”

She described how Crook had even been shouting in the garden that he wanted to evict “these two old people from his home.”

It was only after a similar phrase was used while the parents were in the car that they realised Crook was talking about them.

The trial continues