Daughter raised alarm over mother

Andre Genestin is accused of murdering his 38-year-old wife

The young daughter of a man accused of murdering his wife and hiding her body in a car roof top box raised the alarm about her mother, a court has heard.

The jury at Lewes Crown Court was told police and social services investigated only after the girl raised concerns about her mother at school in Brighton.

The court has heard Andre Genestin, 48, who denies murder, was having an affair with a woman he met on the internet.

The prosecution alleges he crushed wife Catherine's skull with a blunt object.

The court was played two video-recorded interviews with the couple's daughter, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

I was pretty much fed up that she was missing and I wanted to ask my dad questions Mr Genestin's daughter

The girl said she asked Mr Genestin "loads and loads of times" about the whereabouts of her mother because of the length of time she had been away.

Prosecutors claim unemployed Mr Genestin murdered his 38-year-old Russian-born wife over the weekend of May 11 to 14 last year.

Her decomposed remains were found in the storage box in the garden of their home in Maresfield Road, Brighton last June.

Speaking to a police officer and a social worker, the girl said: "I was pretty much fed up that she was missing and I wanted to ask my dad questions but when I did ask him I was surprised when he got annoyed."

'Sitting on box'

She said she was scared of speaking to her father because he would sometimes slap her or order her to her room.

In the first interview, recorded on 29 June 2007, the girl was asked about the plastic car roof storage box her father bought and in which her mother's body was found.

The youngster said her father had bought it to store bikes.

Asked whether she had ever been near the plastic box, she said: "Yes, I've even been standing on it and sitting on it. I was pretending it was a slide and sliding down."

The court has been told Mrs Genestin discovered her husband's affair after sifting through his computer files and that he wanted to move his mistress into their home.

The Crown claims Mr Genestin could have killed his wife because she would have been in a position to blackmail him if they were to separate because of what she knew about his dubious business dealings.

The trial continues.