An East Hampshire man has been jailed for 24 years after brutally murdering his 96-year-old grandmother from Liss in a bid to gain a paltry inheritance and clear his debts.

Joshua Powell was handed the life sentence on Friday at Portsmouth Crown Court after previously admitting to murdering the partially deaf Emma Finch at her Mill Road bungalow during the early hours of May 17 last year.

The 27-year-old defendant of Elmfield Court, Lindford, strangled the “independent, dignified and proud grandmother” in her own bed with a belt before lighting a match and heading to work at Tesco Haslemere.

The resulting fire set off an alarm with responding firefighters discovering her body around 4.40am.

The court heard the murder was financially motivated as Powell owed £8,000 to his landlord and debtors, while Emma knew of his arrears and had previously given him money, as an advance on his inheritance, to help.

He even said to a work colleague beforehand he hoped his nan would “die soon because he was skint and thought he was the only one getting any money when she died.”

Powell fed police a torrent of lies and even tried to frame his mum, but phone signals, CCTV and ANPR confirmed his movements around East Hampshire while a facial scratch, left by the victim during the struggle, and swabs from her neck and fingernails showed a likely match.

And although he was given credit for his guilty plea and “his deep remorse and mental disability” were taken into consideration, Judge Bowes handed Powell the life sentence, citing the “ruthlessness, callousness and brutality” of his calculated and pre-meditated act.

He said: “Your grandmother showed you great kindness and gave you a great deal of money.

“You repaid that kindness by savagely killing her. Money was your motive to commit murder.”

More in next week’s Herald & Post.