Murdered wife 'did not have affair'

Natalie Williams was reported missing on 23 April 2002

A man who exchanged "bawdy" e-mails with a woman who was strangled and drowned has told a jury he was not involved in her disappearance.

Natalie Williams' body was found submerged in a river near her home in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, the day after she was reported missing by her husband, Randle Williams.

Williams, 43, denies murdering his 33-year-old wife.

On Monday the jury at Bristol Crown Court heard her friend Stephen Edwards, who worked with Mrs Williams, explain that although they exchanged sexually explicit e-mails they had not had a physical relationship.

Intimate e-mails

Asked if he had an affair with Natalie, he said: "At one point I thought that was the way it was going to go but it never did."

The jury were read a number of the e-mails which passed between the pair.

One, written by Natalie less than a month before she died in April last year, said she was not sure where the "werewolf" was and could not meet Mr Edwards at her home but would love to be his "Easter bunny".

In another, Mr Edwards wrote: "I will find out if I can handle you when I get hold of you."

Mr Edwards said that although Natalie's emails had displayed an extreme level of intimacy, she was totally different in person.

He said: "It was almost like she would say anything she wanted to on an e-mail but face to face she was a totally different person."

Mr Edwards admitted giving Natalie a copy of a hard-core pornographic film, which the defence suggested included a scene in which a woman was strangled by a man during a sexual act, but said he did not remember seeing anything like that.

Life insurance

He denied having anything to do with her disappearance and the jury heard from Mr Edwards and his wife Marie that they were at home together in Bath on the night Natalie disappeared.

The court also heard from Norwich Union financial consultant David Hudson that Randle Williams had tried to take out life insurance for himself and his wife in the weeks prior to her death.

He said the policy would pay £665,000 to one of the couple on the other's death.

Mr Hudson explained to the jury his company offered a free accidental death benefit during the time an application was being processed.

He said he had told Randle Williams that his wife's application had been turned down, but had not told him this meant the accidental death benefit - worth £500,000 - was null and void.

The trial continues.