The Pembrokeshire double murders trial is due conclude next week.

John William Cooper, 66, has been on trial since March accused of murdering brother and sister Richard and Helen Thomas at Scoveston Manor in 1985 and holidaymakers Peter and Gwenda Dixon near the coastal path at Little Haven in 1989.

Verdicts could be passed early next week following the closing addresses of Gerard Elias QC, the barrister leading the prosecution and Mark Evans QC, in defence.

The judge, Mr Justice John Griffiths Williams, will then sum up the case before sending the jury out to condiser verdicts early next week.

Cooper, of Spring Gardens, Letterston, is also accused of rape and sexual assault and five attempted robberies in Milford Haven in 1996.

Cooper denies all the charges.

On Tuesday a retired Detective Constable told jurors that he did not think Cooper matched the artist’s impression circulated at the time of the crimes.

The drawing was of a man who used Mr Dixon’s card to withdraw money from a cash point in Pembroke shortly after he and his wife had been shot dead in June, 1989.

The description had been given by another holidaymaker who had used the same cash point just before.

Retired Detective Constable Emlyn Dudley said he knew Cooper in 1989 and had worked on the murder investigation.

He said he was told that Mr Dixon’s wedding ring was missing and he was ordered to visit all jewellers’ shops in the area.

He visited 55 in total and found that two members of the public had sold a gold wedding ring shortly after the killings, one in Cardigan and one to Raymond Smith of Pembroke Jewellers, Main Street, Pembroke.

The seller to Mr Smith had signed his name as J Cooper, of 34 St Mary’s Park, Jordanston.

Mr Dudley said he was told to question Cooper, pretending to investigate the theft of jewellery.

At the time, he was aware of the artist’s impression. “I probably had it in my pocket all of the time. It did not resemble Cooper,” he told the jury.

Cooper, said Mr Dudley, told him he had sold his own ring for £25.

Cross examined by Gerard Elias QC, leading the prosecution, Mr Dudley agreed he had interviewed Cooper eight months after the murders.

Earlier this week the jury heard from Gareth Martin, who lived at the Brambles near Rosemarket in 1996.

On November 22, retired teacher Sheila Clark was attacked in a violent robbery at her home in Sardis.

The prosecution claim items thrown away by the robber can now be linked to four murders, a rape, indecent assault and five attempted robberies in the 1980s and 90s.

Cooper was convicted of the Sardis robbery and 30 burglaries in 1998.

Mr Martin admitted that on November 28, 1996, he was arrested and questioned by police about the robbery.

He took officers into a field near his home and showed them a single trainer which had been thrown away. He admitted that at that time he was avoiding the police and had taken to walking across fields so as not to be seen.

Defending, Mark Evans QC said there was no suggestion that Mr Martin had carried out the robbery.

The items discarded along what has become known as the Sardis trail included a sawn-off shotgun and a balaclava, which the prosecution say can now be linked to Cooper and the murders of Peter and Gwenda Dixon.

Other items found after his arrest in 1998 and retested between 2007 and 2009 using modern forensic techniques also linked him to the murders of Richard and Helen Thomas, it has been claimed.

The tests also connected Cooper with the rape of a 16-year-old girl close to the Mount Estate in 1996. Her friend was also indecently assaulted before they and three friends were ordered to hand over money.