A BASINGSTOKE couple were 'savagely' stabbed to death by someone they saw as a friend in their own home, a court was told.

Geoffrey and Michelle Hibbert were allegedly “inexplicably and savagely murdered” by their “friend” Stanley Elliott on June 20, 2021, at their South Ham bungalow.

Police found their bodies in the property on Buckland Avenue on Father’s Day (June 20).

Opening the trial at Winchester Crown Court today (Monday, February 7), prosecutor Sarah Jones QC told the court that Mr Hibbert, 61, and Mrs Hibbert, 29, had been out on the evening of June 19 in Reading. 

Shortly before 1.30am, as Mrs Hibbert was approaching her home, she responded to a text from a friend asking if she had got home ok - she said she had.

Ms Jones said: "It is ironic that she is reassuring somebody that she is home safe because, even though she would very shortly be home, she was not safe.”

She continued: "Half an hour later they had been stabbed multiple times and bled to death.

"Someone who they thought was a friend, had turned on them and inexplicably and savagely murdered them in their own home."

Police and paramedics were called, and first on the scene was PC Sawyer shortly after 2am. He said that "all was quiet and dark". After gaining access to the home, he found the couple’s bodies.

The court was told that Mr Hibbert had 58 separate injuries, to the head, neck, trunk and limbs, including "extensive, multiple, catastrophic blunt force trauma and stab wounds”.

Ms Jones said he had suffered "defensive type wounds to the hands and arms" which indicated a fight.

Mrs Hibbert died of blood loss, Ms Jones added, from multiple stab wounds including seven to the neck.

Elliott, of Kiln Road, Sherborne St John, was later arrested at his own home at 4.02am and gave a “no comment” interview.

He was no longer wearing the clothes he had on earlier, other than his jacket, on which blood was found, reported to be “a billion times more likely” to be that of Mr Hibbert than another person. The rest of his clothes were never recovered.

Ms Jones said: "His actual reaction to armed police turning up at his door was an absence of shock.”

Ms Jones suggested that Elliot’s alleged actions may have been related to documents, found in a bin at the Hibberts' property, regarding a case of a burglary at Buzz Bingo at Basingstoke Leisure Park in January 2020, of which both Mr Hibbert and Elliott were co-accused.

Ms Jones told the court that the evidence into the burglary involved Mr Hibbert's phone which was found hidden in a roof panel of the bingo hall. But the documents showed that Mr Hibbert claimed that he had lent the phone to Elliott on the day of the burglary.

"He pointed the finger, in effect, at Stan Elliott and claimed that he himself had nothing to do with the burglary,” she said.

However, Ms Jones added that "the crown cannot say for certain whether Stan Elliot knew of the paperwork in the bin".

Elliott, 53, denies two counts of murder.

The trial continues.