AN ex-para accused of murdering his gran told police how he found her lying dead in her kitchen, a court has heard.

Garry Kane, 41, denies murdering 87-year-old Kathleen Milward at her home in Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, on January 3.

Kane, who has served with the Parachute Regiment, said that he had gone out to friend Ryan Black's house in the afternoon leaving his gran watching television. He added that she had asked him to put on the oven before he left because she was going to heat a steak pie.

In a statement given on January 7 to Detective Constable John Quinn, Kane told of arriving home to find the conservatory and kitchen in darkness.

He said he thought his gran would have locked the back door and he knocked on it before realising it was unlocked.

Kane said in the statement that when he switched on the lights he could see his gran lying on the kitchen floor with her arms outstretched in "a puddle of blood".

He added: "I think when I saw her I knew she was dead. I was emotional because it was my gran, who I was close to.

"I didn't know what to do. It's 10 years since I left the Army. I got first aid training there."

He said the OAP had a "cut to her right forearm" but that he "couldn't remember seeing any bruises".

The court heard that initially Kane told police that he had not taken heroin the day she died but in a second statement he admitted: "I was going (to Ryan Black's) for two tenner bags. I normally smoke it or snort it."

Kane denies murder and the trial, before judge Lord Matthews, continues.