Salon killing jury considers verdict

Mrs Salmon denies murder

The jury in the case of a jilted wife accused of murdering her love rival has retired to consider its verdict.

Rena Salmon has admitted killing her husband's mistress Lorna Stewart with a shotgun at a west London beauty salon.

But the 43-year-old former army corporal denies murder.

The mother-of-two has told the Old Bailey jury she went into the salon in Chiswick in September last year to commit suicide and pulled the trigger in a trance-like state.

Her defence Patrick Curran QC says she suffered an "abnormality of mind" although they do not claim she was insane.

But the prosecution has argued Mrs Salmon, of Great Shefford, Berks, killed out of rage.

Miss Stewart had set up home with Mrs Salmon's husband of 17 years Paul.

'Common sense'

Prosecutor Peter Clarke QC said: "We say it is quite clear - she went in there to kill her rival, not herself."

The prosecution described Mrs Salmon's 999 call as "staggeringly cold blooded" as she told the operator: "I have just shot my husband's mistress".

Lorna Stewart was shot twice

Summing up the two-week trial on Thursday Judge Neil Denison told the jury to use common sense, to decide if the case was one of murder or manslaughter.

He told them to think about what Mrs Salmon did and said before and after the killing and her demeanour.

Later, he said Mrs Salmon was a woman of previous good character who had had an exemplary discharge from the Army.

He said people often went though a period of "intense unhappiness" when marriages broke up and many felt "justifiable anger" towards the person they considered responsible but he added "very rarely" did they kill that person.