A cleaner accused of murdering her elderly client has told a court she would always hug the "beautiful lady" before and after completing work at her inner western Sydney home.
Hanny Papanicolaou has pleaded not guilty to murdering 92-year-old Marjorie Welsh, in her Ashbury house on January 2, 2019.
The 38-year-old gave evidence in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday of "laughing and talking" a lot to Ms Welsh once a week for a year she was cleaning the home.
"She's such a beautiful lady," she said.
"She's always waiting for me, asking how are you, how are things, when I go home, she's always hugging me."
"She always teaches me about something ... she always tells me about her experience about her holiday. She's always very nice with me ... like a mother."
In December 2018, the pair exchanged Christmas gifts, and Papanicolaou introduced her family to the older woman, something she rarely did, she said.
But the part-time babysitter said she had increasingly become '"so depressed" in the months leading up to the incident and had purchased "anxiety pills".
She began gambling in 2015 to "run away" from her mental anguish, she said.
"Make me forget everything ... make me feel happy, forgot about my pain."
Papanicolaou has pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis of substantial impairment due to an abnormality of the mind, but this was rejected by the Crown.
As a child, she said she suffered a head injury while trying to cross the road to fish in a pond when a ute crashed into her.
After meeting her husband Nick - 20 years her senior - in Indonesia, the pair married and relocated to Australia.
She said she struggled with isolation and was unable to communicate with people for some time until she learned the language.
On the morning of January 2, Papanicolaou lost $430 from poker machines in under an hour and was left with just $11 in her bank account, prosecutor Christopher Taylor earlier told the jury.
Ms Welsh sounded her medical alarm later that morning and described "Hanny the housekeeper" turning up out of the blue having jumped over her back fence.
She told police "Hanny" beat her with walking sticks, hurled ceramics down upon her while she lay helpless on the floor, and was repeatedly stabbed in the chest and abdomen.
She died six weeks later in hospital.
Papanicolaou's testimony is due to continue on Tuesday.
