Missing wife spoke of 'new life'

A woman allegedly murdered by her unfaithful husband nearly 19 years ago said she had been thinking of going abroad, her brother told a court.

Russell Causley, 60, of Portlock Place, Maidenhead, Berkshire, denies killing his wife in summer 1985.

Mr Causley is accused of murdering Veronica Packman after moving his lover - whose surname he later took - into his marital home in Dorset.

Mrs Packman's brother told the trial that she wanted to start a new life.

'Hostile' phone call

At Exeter Crown Court on Tuesday, Brendan Thornton said the last time he saw his sister, known as Carol, was around 1975.

But in mid-1985 he received a telephone call from her "out of the blue" in which she "intimated she might be going abroad to start work".

He said she told him that "life begins at 40" and that she was "getting a new life".

Mr Thornton said he later obtained her telephone number from his father and called it.

He said she was not there when he called and the phone was answered "by a lady called Trish".

Mr Thornton told the court: "The person who answered the phone was hostile and told me not to ring up."

Prosecutor Bruce Holder QC had earlier alleged that it was not long before Mr Causley murdered his wife that he moved his lover Patricia Causley into the then marital home at Ipswich Road, Bournemouth.

Mr Holder said Mr Causley told people that his wife had gone off "with a man in a red Porsche", or that she was working or living in Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland or Malta.

The trial jury was reduced to 11 people on Tuesday when Mrs Justice Hallett discharged a female juror for personal reasons.

The trial continues.