Murder accused admits to affair

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A County Armagh woman accused of murdering her husband has begun giving evidence in her defence.

Jacqueline Crymble and her lover Roger Ferguson, of Richhill, are accused of suffocating her husband, Paul, 35, in June 2004. Both deny the charges.

Mrs Crymble told the court her husband was attacked by four men in their home, who tied him up and took him away.

She admitted a sexual relationship with Mr Ferguson but said it had ended months before her husband's death.

Asked why she had not, at first, told the police about the relationship, the mother-of-two said she hadn't wanted to "appear like a whore".

She said she had never intended to start a family or settle down with Mr Ferguson and that, by the time of Paul's death, she had told him all about the affair.

She said that, after the relationship with Mr Ferguson ended, they had remained friends and admitted that they had been together the night before the murder.

They had attended a party and stayed the night but Mrs Crymble said: "I went to bed on my own. When I woke up in the morning, Roger was lying on top of the bed, but I had gone to bed on my own."

Asked by a defence barrister to recount the events of the day of the murder, Mrs Crymble described how she and her husband had returned from a pub in Richhill and been attacked by four masked men in their home.

She said Paul had tried to close the door but that he had been drunk and had slipped.

She said the men then overpowered him, tied him up and placed a plastic bag over his head before taking him away in the family car.

Wept in stand

She had also been tied up but had managed to phone the police by dialling 999 using her tongue.

Earlier, Mrs Crymble had wept when asked to deal with the evidence of a neighbour.

He told the court that Mrs Crymble had visited his house on a number of occasions and that they had sex.

Mrs Crymble denied this and claimed she had thrown him out of her house after he had made an unwanted pass at her.

She also denied claims by a former work colleague that she had made a pass at him when they worked together at a nursing home in Jordanstown.

She also rejected suggestions, made by a number of witnesses, that she had described her husband in derogatory terms.

Mrs Crymble denied ever having claimed that her husband abused her or raped her.

She also said she had never claimed that she'd been pregnant with twins and miscarried after he had beaten her.

Mrs Crymble's barrister asked her, "Were you involved in the murder of your husband" to which she replied "No".

Asked to describe her marriage, she said: "I had a good marriage with my husband, we told each other everything".

She said she had loved her husband and still loved him while having the affair with Mr Ferguson.

A barrister for Mr Ferguson asked if she had told Paul that his client had stayed in her house while he was away on his motorcycle trip just before the murder, despite her claim that the relationship had been over at that time.

She said she had. When asked if he'd been happy about that, she said: "Well, he wasn't happy but I was up-front and honest with him."

The barrister suggested that the sexual relationship with Mr Ferguson had been continuing right up until the death of her husband, but she said that was untrue.

Mrs Crymble said the police had "said a lot of things that were untrue".

Colin Robinson of Riverside Apartments in Gilford also denies murder.

The trial continues.