'You are trying to poison me'
THE estranged wife of a top South Yorkshire hospital scientist found evidence he was trying to poison her in the run-up to her death, the jury in his murder trial heard.
Lorraine Booth told a friend she had found a bag with pure alcohol and syringes in the Barnsley home she shared with husband Andrew.
Sheffield Crown Court heard Mrs Booth, a barmaid at The Hare and Hounds in Hoyland Common, became concerned when she “passed out” after a couple of glasses of wine at home.
Her stepsister, Katherine Sharp, who lived just yards from the couple in Tankersley Lane, Hoyland Common, said: “When she was coming home from work she would have a drink and there were times when she would pass out.”
Her friend Ian Strike said she marked a wine bottle and later found the liquid was above the line. But when she confronted her husband, who was head of biomedical sciences at Doncaster Royal Infirmary, he tipped it away.
On another occasion she noticed the cardboard on a box of wine had gone soggy and, when she tore it open, found a puncture in the bag, Mr Strike said.
He said Mrs Booth again confronted her husband but he took the wine box from her and denied knowledge of tampering with it.
Mr Strike said Mrs Booth called for him one evening and seemed “drugged up”, although she had not finished work long enough to drink much.
He added: “Another time I visited her home and she started to cry and said, ‘Don’t leave me here with him’.
“She came with me but as we were leaving he said, ‘You do know she’s an alcoholic?’ To which I said, ‘She’s not and I know what you are doing to her’.”
Booth, aged 44, denies murder following the death of his 50-year-old wife on July 11 last year.
He told ambulance staff he had found his wife dead on the floor and at first police did not treat the case as suspicious.
But after her family raised concerns a second post mortem examination found she had died from suffocation. A rarely-used anaesthetic, Enflurane, was found in her blood.
The couple, who have two children, were living apart and were planning to divorce. The settlement could have left Mrs Booth with a 60,000 pay-off.
Her friend Janet Quinn said Booth told her he was worried about the children’s welfare and was concerned his wife was an alcoholic.
She added: “He more or less convinced me she was. He used to send emails which were like a diary of her drinking. I felt really uncomfortable about it.
“She did have a bit of a problem with drinking but she wasn’t an alcoholic. She spent too much time in the pub but looking back now I can understand it.
“She said some nights at home she would have two glasses of wine and would be out for the count on the settee.”
The trial continues.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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