A WOMAN has been jailed for life after being convicted of murdering her own mother in bed.

Keeley Barnard, 52, had denied killing 70-year-old Margaret Sims, from Clacton, but was found guilty by a jury today at Chelmsford Crown Court.

The court heard Barnard, 52, had been sharing a bed at her sister’s home in Stanford-le-Hope with her mother in August last year.

She claimed she was trying to save her mother's life by massaging her throat after she stopped breathing.

The prosecution suggested Barnard, of Hopkins Mead, Chelmsford, had strangled her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, to “put her out of her misery”.