BA pilot killed wealthy wife 'because he felt cheated by prenup agreement'
By ARTHUR MARTIN and EMILY ANDREWS
Last updated at 2:28 AM on 11th May 2011
==================================================
Robert Brown, 47, battered his estranged wife over the head with a camping mallet as their young children cowered in a room off the hallway of their £3 million mansion and buried her at Windsor Great Park, it was alleged.
Brown believed millionairess Joanna, 46, ‘deliberately concealed the extent of her wealth’ and convinced himself their marriage had been a ‘sham’.
Joanna Brown was allegedly murdered by her husband Robert Brown over their pre-nuptial agreement, the court heard
During the attack in the Ascot mansion, the couple’s frightened children – a boy of nine and an 11-year-old girl – could hear the blows.Brown wrapped his wife’s body in plastic sheeting and bundled it into the boot of his 4x4 Volvo, it was said.
The long-haul pilot then put his tearful children into the car and drove to his rented home in nearby Winkfield. He asked his French girlfriend, Stephanie Bellemere, a BA stewardess, to look after the children before driving to a remote part of Windsor Great Park, the court heard.
There the defendant allegedly lowered Mrs Brown’s body into a large plastic crate which had been buried in a grave ‘a matter of weeks earlier’. The spot where her body was found is near Legoland theme park and a few hundred yards from the £800,000 house that Brown had been renting.
At Reading Crown Court yesterday, Brown admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility but denied murder.
Opening the case, prosecutor Graham Reeds QC said the pre-nuptial agreement Brown signed when the couple married in 1999 caused ‘continuing resentment’.
Luxury: Joanna Brown's home in Ascot, Berkshire. Robert Brown felt he had been 'stitched up' by his marriage contract the court heard
By 2007, their relationship had fallen apart and ‘divorce proceedings were, by any standard, acrimonious and bitterly contested’, he said. The prenuptial agreement meant Brown had no claim on the ownership of Tun Cottage, the £3 million marital home, even though he invested £200,000 to turn it into an upmarket bed-and-breakfast hotel.
The agreement also gave him no claim to the millions his wife had inherited when her property-developer father died.
‘It was an agreement the defendant referred to later as a “stitch-up”,’ Mr Reeds said.
‘The defendant had convinced himself that he had been cheated by her and that their marriage had been a sham.’
The difference between what he wanted from their divorce settlement and what her lawyers offered was in the region of £500,000, jurors were told.
Mr Reeds read several hostile emails sent between the estranged couple to the jury. In one, Brown called his estranged wife a ‘righteous spoilt brat’, and warned her ‘what goes around, comes around’.
Girlfriend: Stephanie Bellemere in France last week
Brown, a keen cross-country runner from Edinburgh, attacked his wife on October 31 last year. Mr Reeds told the jury he used a mallet to hit her ‘about the head and face repeatedly until she collapsed’.
‘She suffered extensive fractures to her skull and facial bones with brain injury from which she had no prospect of surviving.
‘After he had incapacitated her, he wrapped Jo’s body in plastic sheeting and put a bin liner or similar black plastic bag over her head in an attempt to avoid leaving bloodstains.’
While he was burying the body, his daughter told Miss Bellemere that ‘there had been blood on the carpet’ at Tun Cottage.
His daughter then told her grandmother over the phone that ‘something bad’ had happened.
The following day Brown’s brother Kenneth, who had been in contact with Miss Bellemere, called the police to say Mrs Brown was missing.
Mr Brown, who was due to fly to Lagos in Nigeria that day, called the police half an hour later and claimed he and his wife had had a ‘domestic argument’.
He was arrested soon after but would not say what had happened to Mrs Brown. The following day his solicitor read a prepared statement which led the police to the location of the body.
‘It was lies, and designed to make what happened look accidental,’ Mr Reeds said.
‘The defendant must have calculated that, because of what police knew, he was in danger of being charged with murder and this was his only chance to lessen the impact and make what happen appear to have been unintentional.’
Police took Brown to Windsor Great Park where he showed them the grave.
Grieving: Joanna Brown's brother James Simpson and her boyfriend Andy Wilson arriving at Reading Crown Court for the start of the murder trial
Inside the crate, officers found rolls of tape, garden ties, latex gloves, plastic footwear and two white overalls on Mrs Brown’s body. They also found a rubber mallet.
Mr Reeds added: ‘The remote location of the grave, the advanced preparation of it, and the collection of materials needed to dispose of her body are, the prosecution say, clear indicators that the defendant had planned to murder his wife and to dispose of her body intending that she never be found.’
Miss Bellemere is currently living with her parents in L’Oise, 50 miles north of Paris.
The 44-year-old, who was pictured carrying a baby last week, will give evidence as a witness during the trial.
The trial continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment