A convicted double killer has been found guilty of murdering his elderly neighbour in a “vicious” killing while he was out on licence.

Lawrence Bierton bludgeoned his elderly neighbour, 73-year-old Pauline Quinn, to death with a coffee table at her home in Rayton Spur, Worksop, Nottinghamshire, on November 9 2021 after she refused to give him money for alcohol.

Bierton, who was on licence from a life sentence for murdering two women in the 1990s, admitted killing Ms Quinn but denied murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to alcohol dependency syndrome, which his barristers claimed formed a “mental abnormality”.

Be under no illusion that that sentence is very much a possibility in your case

Jurors took less than an hour to unanimously convict the 63-year-old of murder on Thursday after a two-week trial at Nottingham Crown Court.

Warning Bierton that a whole-life order was an option, Mr Justice Pepperall said: “Whether that is the sentence passed in this case, I can only decide after proper mitigation on your behalf, but be under no illusion that that sentence is very much a possibility in your case.”

The judge excused the jury from future service for five years.

Bierton looked forward silently as the verdict was returned, while members of Ms Quinn’s family wept in the public gallery.

At the time of her death, Bierton was on licence after being jailed for life in 1996 for murdering two elderly sisters the previous year.

Jurors were told about his previous offending and that he was first released on licence in 2017 but was recalled to prison in 2018 for “repeated failures to address his behaviour” and drug and alcohol misuse.

He was then released again on licence in May 2020 and moved to Rayton Spur six months later.

Bierton, an alcoholic, had drunk vodka and rum and taken crack cocaine and Subutex, an opiod, on the morning of the murder.

He approached Ms Quinn to ask her for money but was refused, which prompted the “egregious” and “brutal” murder, prosecutors said.

She suffered 29 injuries in the attack including at least 10 to the head, with jurors shown a model of Ms Quinn’s skull to demonstrate the injuries.

The victim, who lived alone and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulled the emergency cord in her accommodation during the attack, which recorded audio of Bierton repeatedly striking her with the coffee table.

The audio was played to the jury several times during the trial.

John Cammegh KC, for the Crown, said Bierton showed a “callous and chilling desire” to murder his neighbour as he was “hell-bent” on avoiding a recall to prison over his drug and alcohol misuse.

After the attack at around 4pm, Bierton was seen on CCTV driving off in his victim’s car and seeing a relative before returning to the scene of the killing and removing the remnants of the bloodstained coffee table in a carrier bag.

This was evidence that Bierton’s actions were “calculated” and that he was thinking “strategically” at the time, Mr Cammegh said.

After being arrested the next day by South Yorkshire Police, Bierton told the relative: “You’re not going to like this… I’ve f****** killed somebody.”

He told police the killing “did not make sense” but he had struck her to “keep her quiet”.

His defence barrister, Mark McKone KC, told jurors that Bierton’s alcohol addiction was a recognised “mental abnormality” which would have caused withdrawal symptoms which would have caused him to lose self-control.

Bierton will be sentenced at the same court at 10am on Wednesday.