John Doyle strangled Sian Rees but was caught when he crashed van with her body in passenger seat, court hears
A man murdered his partner and placed her body in the passenger seat of his van intending to dispose of it but was caught when he crashed into a hedge, a jury was told.
John Doyle strangled Sian Rees, a lawyer, at the converted mill home they shared on Dartmoor in Devon, the court heard, but as he drove her body away, lost control of his van.
A nurse stopped and examined Rees, 50, as Doyle pulled her body from the car. He asked the nurse: "Is she OK?" When the nurse informed him she was dead, he allegedly replied: "Oh."
Exeter crown court was told that the couple met via a dating agency and began to live together at the converted mill. But their relationship soured. She felt he was not getting on with renovation work on the mill; he was not happy that she had put on weight. Using the pseudonym "Sindy Sox" she began an internet relationship with another man.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer, and on the day she was killed had had an operation in hospital. Doyle had driven her but ended up getting drunk and was late to pick her up, the court was told.
Rees decided to spend the night away from home and booked in at a hotel before going to the mill to pick up some belongings. There, it was claimed Doyle stabbed her in the stomach with a kitchen knife and then strangled her with his "bare hands".
Paul Dunkels QC, prosecuting, told the jury that following the alleged killing in July last year Doyle, 54, drove off in his white Ford Fiesta van. He hit a traffic island, puncturing a tyre but drove on even after the tyre shredded until he lost control and crashed.
Dunkels said: "It quickly became apparent why the defendant was so keen not to stop and tried to carry on driving on a shredded tyre and metal rim.
"In the front passenger seat was the dead body of his partner, Sian Rees.
She had not been injured in the car crash. Her body was cold and she had been dead for a significant period of time. She had been dead for about 12 hours having been strangled to death by the defendant the previous evening." In the footwell of the car was the knife used to stab her and some other items, the jury was told.
Dunkels said: "He was on his way to dispose of her body and implements he may have used on her and he was only stopped from doing that when he crashed his vehicle."
He added: "It is not clear where he would end up or what he was going to do. He knew one thing, he had to try and get rid of the body of the woman he had murdered before anyone found out what he had done."
Dunkels told the jury: "It must have been a frightening and painful ordeal for Sian Rees." He said she would have tried to save herself and been in great pain having only just undergone surgery earlier that day.
Doyle refused to answer questions during interviews with police and issued only a statement admitting having a row with Rees and struggling with her as she held a knife but saying he did not remember anything else.
Doyle, of Merton, Devon, denies murder and his trial continues.