Wife watched me put children to bed 'with look of absolute hatred and evil on her face', father tells murder trial
Last updated at 2:27 AM on 14th July 2011
The father of two children allegedly smothered by their mother broke down in tears yesterday as he told a jury: ‘They were the only thing she could hurt me with.’
Paul Donnison, 48, described how the last time he saw Harry and Elise alive their mother, Fiona Donnison, watched with ‘a look of absolute hatred and evil on her face’.
Giving evidence against his former partner, he said the ‘manipulative’ and ‘controlling’ 45-year-old had made his life a ‘nightmare’ after she moved out of the family home without warning, taking the children with her.
Heartbroken: Paul Donnison (left) said that his ex-partner Fiona (right) used their children, who she allegedly murdered, as pawns in the relationship
And he maintained that an affair with new lover Alison Shimmens, whom he had met through a Friends Reunited school reunion, only started after he had finally ended their ‘pantomime relationship’.
The bodies of three-year-old Harry and Elise, two, were found zipped into two holdalls in the boot of her car near the former family home in Heathfield, East Sussex, on January 27 last year.
They were most likely suffocated with pillows the night before at Donnison’s rented house in Lightwater, Surrey, the jury was told.
'Pawns': Fiona Donnison denies murdering three-year-old Harry and two-year-old Elise Donnison
With tears rolling down his face, Mr Donnison told a hushed court of the last time he saw Harry and Elise, on January 24. He had returned from a business trip to the U.S. to find his former partner and the children staying, unannounced, in the family home.
‘I had a little police car for Harry,’ he said. ‘He came over and wrapped his little arms around me and we were hugging.
Threatened: Alison Shimmens (pictured) was told by Fiona Donnison that 'if he's sleeping with you, he will never see the kids?' after she started a relationship with Paul Donnison, it is alleged
‘Fiona was standing two or three feet away and had a look of absolute hatred and evil on her face. Fiona shooed him back into his bedroom and that was the last time I saw him alive.
‘I went into Elise’s bedroom, she was peacefully asleep and I gave her a peck on the cheek. She wiggled her nose but didn’t wake up.That was the last time I saw Elise.’
Mr Donnison, an insurance broker, refused to look at his ex-partner as she sat in the dock of Lewes Crown Court with her head bowed.
Psychiatrists who examined her after her arrest diagnosed her as having a narcissistic personality with an inflated sense of her own importance and entitlement.
The jury heard the couple never married during their nine-year relationship but she changed her name by deed poll without telling him.
Mr Donnison said he was left stunned when he arrived home in September 2009 to find his partner, a former City worker, had left the family home without warning, taking the children. They attempted a reconciliation several times but she would suddenly change her mind.
He added: ‘As long as she had control of the children, she had control of me. She knew they (the children) were my life. They were the only thing she could hurt me with.’
Mr Donnison admitted he had started seeing old school friend Mrs Shimmens but said their friendship was strictly platonic until he ended his relationship with the defendant on January 14. Over the next couple of days he and Mrs Shimmens became intimate.
Tragic: The car of Fiona Donnison was taken away in January 2010 after the bodies of her two small children were found in it in East Sussex
Taped off: The home of Fiona Donnison in Lightwater, Surrey
He said Mrs Donnison's being made redundant in July had been a 'massive blow to her ego' because she thought she was too valuable and important to let go.
Just one day before she left, taking Harry and Elise and her two teenage sons from her previous marriage to a secret address, they had all returned from a happy family holiday in Ireland.
He had gone to work as normal on the Monday and returned to find the house empty, a note on the kitchen table explaining it was for the 'sake of the children' and that she would be in touch.
He said: 'I have absolutely no knowledge this was happening. I was completely and utterly stunned.
'I can't express how I felt when I walked in the house. I just ran around the house, completely disbelieving what I was seeing.
'Your children have gone, you don;t know where they are, you don't know the reason why they are gone.'
He said for the next three weeks, she played games with him, using the children to control him by telling him when and where he could see them, speaking of reconciliation one minute and being cold and argumentative the next.
He said he was 'absolutely stunned' again when he learned she had moved into a house 100 yards away from his ex-wife and children, from whom he Was estranged.
He said: 'It made Fiona the focus of attention. It disturbed me and I know it disturbed my ex-wife.'
On a pre-arranged family day out, he told the court Donnison saw a text message on his mobile from Alison Shimmens, who he had reconnected with at a Friend's Reunited party for pupils from his school year, with whom he would later start a romantic relationship.
He said: 'The relationship only started in January when Fiona and I finished our relationship.
'Fiona was angry, making accusations of an affair. Then she said she had made a terrible mistake, she wanted me back.'
Donnison denies two counts of murder. The case continues.
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