The mother of murdered children’s author Helen Bailey told a jury she was “uneasy” about her daughter’s relationship with the man accused of killing her.

Eileen Bailey, 88, also said she was concerned for her daughter’s state of mind in the weeks before she was reported missing in April 2016.

The writer, who had a holiday home in Broadstairs, was found three months later in a cesspit beneath the garage of the £1.5m home she shared with her fiance Ian Stewart in Royston, Hertfordshire.

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Stewart, 56, is accused of drugging and killing her, in order to get his hands on her £4m fortune.

Giving evidence via video link, Eileen Bailey told jurors at St Albans Crown Court: “I felt uneasy about the relationship between Ian Stewart and Helen.”

However, she revealed she was “concerned” for Helen’s state of mind as she suddenly began to suffer from memory problems.

“Latterly I was quite unhappy, mainly because of Helen’s state of mind,” said Mrs Bailey.

“Helen kept in regular contact with me. I was worried about her, there were a number of particular incidents that concerned me.

“Helen was having lapses in memory, and she just had such a good memory beforehand.

“She had never spoken of memory problems beforehand.”

Mrs Bailey broke down in the witness box today as she admitted feeling “dismissive” of her daughter’s reported symptoms.

Earlier in the trial, the jury heard how Stewart allegedly drugged Helen with sleeping tablet Zopiclone, the same drug he had been prescribed months before her disappearance.

Forensic tests and analysis of hair samples found traces of Zopiclone in her system during a post-mortem examination.

A tearful Mrs Bailey said: “I feel I was dismissive.

“There was a Tesco incident when she came back to her car with the scanner in her hand, but the main one was when she lost the dog on the beach and just went home - that would not have happened previously.

“I was reassuring her on the Tesco incident, I didn’t think it was a big deal but afterwards thinking about it it was just another memory problem.”

She also talked about Helen feeling sleepy and being unable to recognise her own hands.

Mrs Bailey said: “Helen said when she was sitting at the computer she couldn’t recognise her own hands; that was worrying. “She was feeling sleepy, a lot of the time.

“The last one she phoned me up a lunch time and was very anxious, saying she’d just slept for five hours.

“She fell asleep in bed. She said she’d had her two poached eggs in the morning, she’d taken Boris out as usual, and then she’d come back.

“What worried her most was that Ian’s parents had come round and she was concerned about what they would think about her being asleep in bed.

"What worried her most was that Ian’s parents had come round and she was concerned about what they would think about her being asleep in bed" - Helen's mum, Eileen Bailey

“I said that didn’t matter, but I would have expected Boris to bark. Ian said Boris didn’t bark.”

Mrs Bailey also told the court that Helen felt ‘spaced out’ around six weeks before she disappeared.

“Particularly when she was shopping and wanting to reach up for something from a shelf she felt she would fall to the floor,” she said.

“I suggested she went to the doctors.”

During cross-examination, Mrs Bailey accepted that she thought Helen feeling dizzy could also have been to do with her eyesight, and she told Helen to buy some new glasses.

Helen bought three pairs following a visit to an optician in February 2016, she told the court.

Mrs Bailey also said she was aware Helen had been to see a doctor as early as 2012 about her dizziness, and that she had been told she had high blood pressure.

Stewart, a computer expert, denies murder, fraud, preventing a lawful burial and three counts of perverting the course of justice.

Earlier, the jury heard the 101 call made by Stewart to report Mrs Bailey's disappearance.

The trial continues.