Lover 'denies murdering husband'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/northern_ireland/6592887.stm

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Alleged killer Roger Ferguson was in love with his co-accused Jacqueline Crymble but had nothing to do with her husband's murder, a court has heard.

Both are accused of suffocating her husband, Paul, 35, in June 2004. They deny the charges.

Giving evidence in his defence, Mr Ferguson dismissed as "rubbish" claims by Mrs Crymble that their relationship had not been serious.

"I loved her," he said. "She said she was going to leave her husband."

He added that she said they were "going to have a child of our own", Armagh Crown Court was told.

During Wednesday's hearing, the 31-year-old admitted that he had been angry when Jacqueline Crymble had told him that she had been pregnant with his twins, but had miscarried after Paul allegedly kicked her in the stomach.

'Repeatedly lied'

Jacqueline Crymble, who had been sterilised years earlier, denied ever having made that claim, however, Mr Ferguson insisted that she did and that he believed her.

Asked if the nature of his relationship with her was such that he would have done "absolutely anything" for her, he said: "I wouldn't have done 'anything' for her."

He agreed that he had repeatedly lied to the police during interviews, first telling them he did not have a relationship with Jacqueline Crymble, then telling them he was just using her for sex.

He said: "I was shy about coming forward."

He told the jury that the sexual relationship between him and Jacqueline Crymble had continued right up to the day of her husband's murder and that they had slept together the night before it happened, something Jacqueline Crymble has denied.

He also said it had continued for months after the murder, again something his co-accused has denied.

A third defendant, Colin Robinson, has said that he saw Roger Ferguson attack Paul Crymble and drive off with his body in the back of a car.

"That's not correct, I wasn't there," said Mr Ferguson.

He said he had known Mr Robinson for years and always considered him to be "dead on", and that he did not know why he would lie about what had happened.

Asked what he now thought of his co-accused, he said: "I don't think much of him."

He was also asked how his DNA had come to be on cable ties used to bind Paul Crymble.

He said he did not know, but that he had often handled cable ties at his work and in a local hardware shop.

Colin Robinson of Riverside Apartments in Gilford also denies murder.