Forensic scientists failed to find any DNA evidence linking the man accused of the Clydach killings to the murder scene, a jury has heard.

Swansea Crown Court was told that Home Office scientists examined hundreds of items removed from the house in Kelvin Road where Mandy Power, her two daughters, and her elderly mother, were battered to death.

They also carried out a detailed examination of the house itself, again without discovering any evidence to link 40-year-old scrap dealer David Morris to the scene apart from a gold chain.

David Morris denies four counts of murder

The court heard it was the same story when scientists examined clothing belonging to Mr Morris, from Craig Cefn Parc, who denies murdering the family of four.

Forensic scientist Claire Galbraith told the jury that whoever committed the murders either bathed or showered before leaving the murder scene.

She found a bath at the house half full of bloody water, and there was also blood on the shower control unit.

Mrs Galbraith gave the jury her impression of how Mrs Power, her 80-year-old mother, Doris Dawson and her two daughters Katie and Emily met their deaths.

Injuries

All four were found dead at the house in June 1999, following what was described in court as a "massacre".

During the hearing on Tuesday, it emerged that Mrs Power, aged 34, suffered the worst of her injuries in front of her bedridden mother.

Asked to speculate on the sequence of deaths, Mrs Galbraith said she thought Doris Dawson was the first to have been attacked.

Police found a gold necklace lying in a pool of Mrs Power's blood on the bedroom floor, and the prosecution has alleged that it belonged to Mr Morris.

Forensic experts found a bath of blood

Earlier in the trial, the prosecution claimed that he had carried out the killings after the mother of two spurned his sexual advances.

He then set fire to the house to conceal his crime, it was claimed.

Opening the trial earlier this month, prosecuting counsel Patrick Harrington QC told the jury the family had been subjected to an "orgy of savagery".

He said they were beaten to death with an iron bar and that their deaths could only be described as a "massacre".

The trial continues.