A teenage burglar who beat a woman to death at her house was found guilty yesterday of her murder.

Lloyd Edwards, an amateur boxer aged 19, repeatedly punched Laila Rezk, 51, in the face after invading her house in Kingston Vale, southwest London. Her injuries suggested that her head had also been smashed against a wall.

Ms Rezk’s children came home for a family dinner to find the front door ajar and the hallway splattered and smeared with blood, and Ms Rezk’s partially naked body. She had just returned from a trip to Egypt with her husband of 25 years, Maurice.

The jury took an hour and a half to find Edwards guilty after the week-long trial at Kingston Crown Court.

Edwards, of Roehampton, told the court that he had been drinking all day on November 29, last year, and had decided to burgle the house. Ms Rezk started screaming as she saw him enter, and he began punching her. He said he did not think he had seriously hurt her because he had measured his blows. The court was told that the fatal injury was caused by a blow that damaged her brain stem.

Edwards will be sentenced today.

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