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| Death lake jury visit grave site | |
| (about 9 hours later) | |
| The jury in the trial of a man accused of murdering his wife have visited the lake in France where her body was recovered. | |
| Evelyn Lund, 52, originally from Darwen in Lancashire, went missing from the farmhouse she shared with her husband in France on 29 December 1999. | Evelyn Lund, 52, originally from Darwen in Lancashire, went missing from the farmhouse she shared with her husband in France on 29 December 1999. |
| Her decomposed body was found in her car in Lake Bancalie, 15 miles (24km) from their house in Rayssac in 2001. | Her decomposed body was found in her car in Lake Bancalie, 15 miles (24km) from their house in Rayssac in 2001. |
| Robert Lund, 55, denies killing her and trying to disguise it as an accident. | Robert Lund, 55, denies killing her and trying to disguise it as an accident. |
| The five men and four women of the jury were led to a rocky outcrop 20ft (6m) above the lake, from where Mrs Lund's 4x4 is thought to have fallen on the night of her death. | |
| Without mechanical propulsion, and without human propulsion, the car could not enter the lake Robert Hasan, police car accident expert | |
| Mr Lund, handcuffed and wearing a stab vest, looked on as the jury were shown diagrams and maps of the site. | |
| Robert Hasan, a police expert on car accidents, said that because Mrs Lund's 4x4 was not in gear when it entered the lake, the vehicle's fall was unlikely to have happened by accident. | |
| "Without mechanical propulsion, and without human propulsion, the car could not enter the lake," he said. | |
| "Our conclusion was that the car was pushed in neutral into the water backwards, with the person inside unconscious." | |
| An examination of the gearbox found it to be in good working order, he said, making it unlikely that it came out of gear by itself. | |
| Evelyn Lund's body was discovered when lake water levels dropped | Evelyn Lund's body was discovered when lake water levels dropped |
| Investigations also showed the driver's window had been left open, despite rain and freezing temperatures on the night of Mrs Lund's disappearance. | |
| Earlier in the day the bloodstained clothes of Evelyn Lund were shown to the French court in Albi. | |
| Holding up a bloody sweater, Dr Christian Doutreme-Puich, a DNA expert, told the Cour d'Assises de Tarn he had been unable to match the stains to Mrs Lund's DNA. | Holding up a bloody sweater, Dr Christian Doutreme-Puich, a DNA expert, told the Cour d'Assises de Tarn he had been unable to match the stains to Mrs Lund's DNA. |
| "We were unable to reach a conclusion about whose blood this was, either because the water of the lake had diluted the sample too much, or because it had broken down over time," he said. | "We were unable to reach a conclusion about whose blood this was, either because the water of the lake had diluted the sample too much, or because it had broken down over time," he said. |
| Tests on a large patch of blood on the back seat of the car also drew a blank. | Tests on a large patch of blood on the back seat of the car also drew a blank. |
| Mr Lund is accused of murdering his wife so he could live off her life insurance. | |
| He has always maintained he played no part in her death. | |
| The trial continues. | The trial continues. |