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| Husband jailed for wife's killing | Husband jailed for wife's killing |
| (31 minutes later) | |
| A 55-year-old man has been found guilty of killing his wife and dumping her body in a French lake. | A 55-year-old man has been found guilty of killing his wife and dumping her body in a French lake. |
| Robert Lund, originally from Darwen in Lancashire, has been jailed for 12 years following the trial in Albi, south west France. | Robert Lund, originally from Darwen in Lancashire, has been jailed for 12 years following the trial in Albi, south west France. |
| The jury convicted Lund of his wife's involuntary homicide. | The jury convicted Lund of his wife's involuntary homicide. |
| Evelyn Lund, 52, disappeared from the family home in Rayssac, France, in 1999. Her car was found two years later in Lake Bancalie with her body inside. | |
| Meal ticket | |
| The jury of five men and four women rejected Lund's claim that his wife had driven into the lake by accident following a storm. | The jury of five men and four women rejected Lund's claim that his wife had driven into the lake by accident following a storm. |
| He had originally been charged with her murder but was cleared and convicted of the lesser offence of involuntary homicide, which means that the jury did not accept that he intended to kill her. | He had originally been charged with her murder but was cleared and convicted of the lesser offence of involuntary homicide, which means that the jury did not accept that he intended to kill her. |
| The couple moved from Lancashire to France in 1997 | |
| The prosecution argued that Lund killed his wife and tried to make the crime look like an accident so he could live off her life insurance. | |
| During the trial, the jury heard Mrs Lund's first husband Arthur Taylor had left her well-off when he died from cancer in 1991. | |
| Prosecutors and Mrs Lund's family claimed Lund was impoverished and living in a caravan when he met the rich widow, and saw her as an easy means to a life of idle affluence. | |
| The court heard the couple's relationship was stormy from the outset - with Mrs Lund's daughter Victoria leaving the family home aged 16 to escape the regular rows. | |
| Lund claimed his wife was a violent alcoholic who regularly attacked him physically, and once even threw a 10-inch kitchen knife at him. | |
| Spectacles clue | |
| But other friends said Lund was cruel and manipulative towards his wife, frequently belittling her in public. | |
| Their relationship deteriorated when they moved to France in 1997 and by Christmas 1999 the couple were on the point of divorce. | |
| Evelyn Lund's body was discovered when lake water levels dropped | |
| Lund claimed he never saw his wife again after she went to visit her friend, Marianne Ramsey, on 29 December 1999. | |
| However, Mrs Lund's glasses were found after her death in the farmhouse she shared with her husband. | |
| The prosecution had told the court that this was a vital piece of evidence in condemning Lund for his wife's murder because it meant she had returned to their house afterwards as Mrs Ramsey claimed Mrs Lund had been wearing her spectacles when she visited her. | |
| During the five-day trial the court heard that Lund, a former tree cutter, had subjected his wife to a sustained campaign of mental and physical abuse. | |
| A post-mortem examination on the body failed to establish the cause of death, but a pathologist said Mrs Lund was probably dead when she entered the water. |