Accused wrote love letter to woman.

Byline: Elwyn Roberts

A SECURITY guard penned a love letter to a former girlfriend just a few weeks before he attacked her with an iron bar, leaving her brain-damaged and permanently blinded, a court heard yesterday.

Graham James Hadden, who did not know the surname of victim Suzanne Roberts, sent the letter to My Babe at her address in Connah's Quay High Street, and put the letters SWALK - Sealed with a Loving Kiss - on the back of the envelope.

The contents of the letter, posted on December 12 last year, were read to the jury at Mold Crown Court yesterday.

The letter began: "Dear Babe, Surprise, surprise, just thought I would write a few lines and tell you how much I love you."

Hadden wrote: "Always remember, I shall always be there for you", and then wrote out a love poem which read: "I will never find another like you, Heaven lost an Angel, This I know is true, Because I found that Angel, The Day that I met you, You, to me, are one of a kind, Another like you, I will never find. God picked you from all the rest, Because he knew I'd love you the best, So even if you say goodbye, Then me heart would surely die."

Hadden ended the letter by saying "always remember, a rose for a rose, lots of love, your Brave Heart", and he put kisses on the bottom.

He had been involved in a brief relationship with Miss Roberts.

The prosecution at Mold Crown Court say that just a few weeks later, on January 2 this year, jealous that she had other boyfriends and after he had allegedly found her having sex with another man, Hadden made his way from his home in Gloucester carrying gloves and a heavy metal bar in a hold-all.

He went to her upstairs flat and attacked her so ferociously that her skull was shattered.

She now suffered from a rare condition which meant she was blind but was convinced she could see.

A doctor had said how he had never seen such horrific injuries, for her scalp had become detached "as a result of the savagery of the attack" with the metal bar.

The prosecution say Miss Roberts was set upon by Hadden, who travelled up from his home in Brook Street, Gloucester, in order to murder her.

Hadden denies a charge of attempted murder of Miss Roberts.

Stephen Hopkins QC, prosecuting, said to the jury: "The defendant may have failed to kill her but you may think that he has, by virtue of the injuries she suffered, destroyed her life."

Earlier, consultant pathologist Dr Donald Wayte told the jury how he had examined photographs of injuries and the metal bar and said that in his view, they were entirely consistent with the wounds being caused with an instrument such as the bar.

He suggested that heavy bruising to her right arm was likely to be defence injuries where she had put her arm put to protect herself, or where the weapon had missed the head.

Graham and Gwen Catherall, whose photographic studio was next door to Miss Roberts' flat, told how they had heard an argument.

Mrs Catherall said she heard an angry male voice say, "I'll get you" and a female crying. She heard a thud and a female crying and sobbing.

Mr Catherall said he heard a male and female voice and then a woman whimpering. "At one stage I thought it seemed like a child, " he said.

PC Christopher Bruce Roberts said he found a woman in an ambulance, heavily blood-stained with a bandage around her head and Hadden outside, shaking and crying.

The trial continues.