Colleague 'didn't kill in temper'

Lukasz Reszpondek admits preventing the lawful burial of Ermatati Rodgers

A dairy worker accused of strangling a woman and burying her body in a field has denied losing his temper because she wanted him to leave his wife.

Lukasz Reszpondek, 30, said he had never had a sexual relationship with Ermatati Rodgers, 41, of Wrexham.

He told Mold Crown Court that Ms Rodgers, a colleague, had never demanded he leave his wife.

He denies murder but admits preventing Ms Rodgers' lawful burial. The trial continues.

Cross-examining Mr Reszpondek, who is Polish, prosecutor Michael Chambers put it to him that he had murdered Ms Rodgers when she either refused to have sex with him, or because she was pressing him to leave his wife for her.

For me there is only one woman for whole life Lukasz Reszpondek

Mr Chambers said that Indonesia-born Ms Rodgers, a colleague, did not like being divorced, wanted to marry again, and liked the defendant very much.

Mr Reszpondek, of Rhostyllen, near Wrexham, said that she had never mentioned him leaving his wife, with whom he has two children, and said that they never had a sexual relationship.

He told the court he was a family man, his wife was more attractive and he had no reason to have sex with another woman.

"For me there is only one woman for whole life," he told the jury.

The defendant was asked about evidence that a friend had found them in bed together, than he had fondled her breasts, and that they had been photographed, both in their underwear?

He said they never had sex but photographs had been taken with an automatic camera because Ms Rodgers wanted to make her former husband jealous.

The body of Ermatati Rodgers was found buried on farmland

Mr Reszpondek admitted buying her a vibrator but said that was a joke on her birthday.

Shallow grave

Earlier he was asked about his visit in the dark to the shallow grave in a field in Erddig, Wrexham, in March, where he dug a trench exposing Ms Rodgers' legs.

Mr Chambers put it to him that he spent three hours digging, in the hope of removing the body to another area to prevent the police finding it.

But he was unable to remove her.

He had filled the car with petrol so that he could drive her far away because he knew the police digging operation in the area was closing in on him and that they were about to find the body, Mr Chambers said.

But the defendant denied the allegations. He said that he was happy when the police started digging because he believed that they wound find the body and find evidence that would prove him innocent.

But Mr Chambers said that if that if he wanted the police to find the body then he had 14 months to tell them, but he had lied repeatedly in police interviews.

Jeffrey Samuels QC, defending, has suggested that Ms Rodgers may have suffered a sudden heart condition through crash dieting and that the fractured thyroid bones in the neck may have been fractured when she fell in Mr Reszpondek's house onto a coffee table which overturned.

Mr Reszpondek denies murdering Mrs Rodgers, of Gwersyllt, at his home in January 2008 after he returned home alone from Poland.

The trial continues.