Accused banker 'was not jealous'

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A City banker accused of strangling his unfaithful wife in their north London home has told a court he is not a jealous man.

Neil Ellerbeck, 46, of Enfield, told the Old Bailey he believed his wife Katherine was having three affairs.

But he told jurors he understood why she was doing it as he was seeing another woman himself.

The HSBC executive, who denies murdering his 46-year-old wife last November, said he still loved her.

Mr Ellerbeck suspected his wife of cheating on him with three men and secretly bugged hours of her conversations from their home phone, jurors have heard.

'No love left'

But he said: "I don't believe I am jealous. I didn't ask her to stop doing anything. I didn't confront her about these chaps."

Cross-examining him, prosecutor Edward Brown QC suggested that there was "no love left" in the marriage.

Mr Ellerbeck answered: "Yes there was."

Asked about his attitude to her infidelity, he referred to his own relationship with a woman called Julie Ring.

I loved her as my wife, a mother Neil Ellerbeck

He said: "In a way I understood. She was using these friends as shoulders as well. Julie was mine."

He described having a violent row with her in which she was being "very, very vicious" and bit his thumb.

After the row he told the court he went out to pick up his daughter from a school before returning to find his wife lying in the hallway and not moving.

Mr Brown asked: "You caused her death, didn't you?"

"No," Mr Ellerbeck replied.

He added: "I was angry that it had got to this stage after so many years, that we were actually having a physical fight - not angry that I would want to hurt her. I am not that way."

He said he felt the marriage was "improving" from the way it was earlier in the year and the couple had even held hands at a recent tennis tournament.

Mr Ellerbeck said: "I loved her as my wife, a mother. I loved her for the potential we still had, I felt."

The case continues.