The trial of Browns Brasserie founder Jeremy Mogford and his sister Sarah Pickering has opened at Oxford Crown Court, where both deny murdering their 100-year-old mother Pamela Mogford in February 2022. A jury was selected on Monday 9 November, with Mr Justice Jay presiding, and the prosecution opened its case on Tuesday 10 November. The trial is expected to last around four weeks.

Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC told jurors that Pamela Mogford died at her home in Bledlow Ridge, Buckinghamshire, on 15 February 2022. He said her GP had visited three times the previous day and given her morphine injections, believing she might be dying, and certified her death as being from old age. The prosecution alleges that after the GP's final visit, the defendants gave their mother more morphine from a bottle of Oramorph, a liquid morphine prescribed to her weeks earlier.

Texts read to the jury

Jurors heard that texts discovered from Pickering on the evening of her mother's death included the words "I am actually killing her". Mogford, 79, of St Giles, Oxford, and Pickering, 72, of Guildford, Surrey, each face one count of murder and one count of attempted murder. Both have pleaded not guilty and remain on bail.

In a police statement in October 2023, Mogford said he "emphatically refuted" the allegations. In a further statement in August 2024, he said that after the GP left, his mother's condition deteriorated and she was "in obvious distress and considerable pain". The trial continues.