A former airline pilot murdered his
estranged wife by deliberately smashing his car into a tree at more than
50mph after her airbag had been disabled, a court heard yesterday.
Company
director Iain Lawrence purposely careered off a bend on a quiet country
road in order to kill his 47-year-old passenger in a ‘most cunning
way’, it was claimed.
Jurors
were yesterday told Sally Lawrence, the managing director of a business
which specialised in cleaning up chemical spills, was terrified of her
husband in the months before her death, even telling one friend: ‘One
day he will kill me’.
'Cunning': A court sketch shows Iain Lawrence in
the dock at Leicester Crown Court where he stands accused of murdering
his wife Sally, right, by deliberately crashing his car into a tree as
she rode in the passenger seat
Prosecutor Nirmal Shant QC said
Lawrence, who ran a car trailer business, had been unable to accept his
wife instigating a divorce and starting a new relationship.
He killed her, the barrister said, ‘out of greed, anger and possibly jealousy.’
An
examination of the vehicle’s data recording system found that ‘someone’
had turned the passenger side airbag off ‘six cycles’ before the crash -
with the engine being turned on and off representing one cycle.
Miss Shant told the jury: ‘The car was
driven into a tree and the deceased died almost instantaneously because
the airbag didn’t detonate - and the reason the airbag didn’t detonate
was because it had been switched off.
‘The question for you is, “Who switched the airbag off?”
‘Because there is no issue that at the time of the collision the airbag was off.
‘His airbag was on, hers off. He was wearing his seatbelt, she wasn’t. Him in the brace position, her dead.
‘She
was fearful he might do something to her, and that is exactly what he
did, in the most cunning way, in a plan that was not likely, he thought,
to raise suspicion.’
Gartree Road near Leicester, where Mrs Lawrrence
died: An examination of her husband's car's data recording system found
that 'someone' had turned the passenger side airbag off 'six cycles'
before the crash
Leicester Crown Court heard the couple had a ten-year-old son, who was away on a school trip at the time of the incident.
Mrs
Lawrence, who also had two adult daughter’s from a previous marriage,
was ‘fanatical’ about wearing a seatbelt, but had not been strapped in
at the moment of impact. .
Her ‘calm and cold’ husband, who frequently didn’t wear his, was buckled up.
Miss
Shant told the hearing that accident investigators found no evidence
that Lawrence had attempted an emergency stop, and that the passenger
side of his Peugeot 406 received the ‘brunt’ of the collision.
He
escaped the smash with minor injuries - and bruising consistent with
being in the ‘brace’ position at the time he ploughed off into the tree
at an estimated 52.3mph.
The
prosecutor added that Mr Lawrence claimed to have no recollection of
the crash afterwards - but a number of witnesses at the scene believed
the 53-year-old was ‘faking’ unconsciousness.
Mrs
Lawrence was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash in the village
of Oadby, near Leicester, last October, having suffered multiple
injuries.
Splitting the assets: The Lawrences' £300,000
family home in Oadby, which the couple still shared. The court heard
they had an 'acrimonious' discussion about the division of their assets
the day before the crash
The prosecutor said ‘matters had
been brought to a head’ a day before the crash when Mrs Lawrence had
had an ‘acrimonious’ discussion with her husband about the division of
their assets, in particular the £300,000 detached home they still shared
in the upmarket village despite living ‘separate lives’.
In
text messages to one of her two daughters from a previous relationship
later that night, she said the conversation had gone badly because Mr
Lawrence wanted ‘more than half’ of the house, and that she planned to
lock herself in her bedroom because she was so scared of him.
Miss Shant said Mr Lawrence had previously told his wife in a ‘menacing’ way: ‘You’ll get your feelings back for me.’
She also told a work colleague her husband ‘had evil in his eyes’ when they spoke, and that she feared being alone with him.
A
police constable who examined the Peugeot and the scene concluded that
the vehicle had partly negotiated a bend in the road and then taken a
‘different and deliberate’ course that led to the tree.
No
injury was found on the deceased consistent with wearing a seat-belt,
and the Crown claims Mrs Lawrence was either not wearing one, or did not
have it clipped in.
Outlining
the seat-belt evidence, Miss Shant told jurors: ‘If she wasn’t wearing a
seat-belt, you have to ask yourself who unclipped it.’
In
police interviews after the crash, the defendant claimed to have no
memory of what had happened or of getting into the car at the start of
the fatal journey.
Mr Lawrence's Peugeot 406: The 'brunt' of the
damage, pictured here before the collision, was received by the
passenger side, and there was no evidence the suspect had attempted an
emergency stop, the court heard
Miss Shant said it was a mystery
what Mrs Lawrence was doing in her husband’s car. She had her own
Jaguar and would ‘never willingly’ travel in Mr Lawrence’s car, and
would not have got in it with him ‘unless forced or tricked’.
The
jury heard that when police later examined the Jaguar, which had been
left outside the estranged couple’s detached home, they found it
contained Mrs Lawrence’s purse, phone, laptop and overnight bag.
She had been planning to spend the night with her new partner Martin Smith, the court heard.
The
court heard the couple met in the late 1990’s and married in 2000. Two
years later their son was born, but the marriage ran into difficulties
and Mrs Lawrence began divorce proceedings last year.
A Decree Nisi was due to be issued two days after Mrs Lawrence died, with the Decree Absolute following a month later.
Lawrence, of Knighton, Leicester, denies murder.
The trial continues.
DAILYMAIL
No comments:
Post a Comment