Police arrest four men from ex-offender hostel over murder of country estate pensioner, 77

Georgina Edmonds, 77, was beaten to death in her cottage in the grounds of a country estate on Friday.

Police arrested the men, aged 21, 28, 36 and 37, at nearby Elderfield House hostel.

It comes two years after serial sex attacker Anthony Rice, 49, stabbed 40-year-old mother of one Naomi Bryant to death while he was at Elderfield.

Her body was found by her 14-year-old daughter.

Residents of the half-way house for ex-prisoners have their own keys and are not checked in at night.

Locals in Brambridge, Hampshire, have now called for the hostel to be closed.

Mark Greenshield, who runs the nearby White Horse pub, said: 'The place is a holiday camp and I say pull it down.

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They are not tagged or anything. They are supposed to be in by 11.30pm but I have seen them jumping out of the windows at two in the morning.

'Feelings are strong in the village, especially after the Rice case. People are terrified.'

Winchester MP Mark Oaten also called for it to close if the killers were found to live there. He said: 'I have to put safety first.'

In May 2006 an inquiry by Andrew Bridges, the Chief Inspector of Probation, revealed how Rice killed Miss Bryant, in August 2005, nine months after being freed from a 16-year jail term.

He said the Parole Board had placed an 'increasing focus' on Rice's human rights rather than on protecting the public.

Naomi Bryant's mother Verna, 70, said from her Winchester home yesterday: 'I would hate to think somebody had been let out of jail, like Anthony Rice, who could commit such a terrible crime.

'I would like to think the authorities had learnt some lessons. I hope for the sake of the murdered woman's family it wasn't an ex-offender because it makes it so much worse.'

The body of grandmother Mrs Edmonds was found by her 52-year-old son, Henry, who lives on the same estate.

A post-mortem examination found she died from head injuries.

There were no signs of forced entry at her cottage and police said it was normal for the pensioner, the widow of Basingstoke coffee merchant Harry Edmonds, to leave her house unlocked.

Her son, who is also known as Harry, runs the family business, coffee and tea merchants Edmonds.

A family friend said: 'She was a beautiful lady. She was bubbly, full of fun. I'm extremely fraught and sorry. It's terrible.

'Harry will be very, very upset. He was very close to his mum.'

Elderfield is run by the Christian charity the Langley House Trust, which supervises former prisoners under licence.

The trust runs 15 houses and describes Elderfield as a 'residential training centre'. About 15 people live there.

Its website says: 'Elderfield aims to assist each resident to live a fulfilling life which is crime free.'

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Barton said: 'We are keeping an open mind as to the motive for Mrs Edmonds's murder. Whether or not it may have been a burglary which went wrong is a line of inquiry.'