Man crashed car to kill wife after hearing she wanted a divorce, court told
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Version 0 of 1. A man murdered his wife in a high-speed motorway crash that resembled an explosion after she told him she wanted a divorce, a court has heard. Leicester crown court was told that two dogs and items of luggage were propelled into the air from a pick-up truck being driven by Ian Walters as it ploughed into a row of trees. Walters, 51, denies the murder of his wife, Tracy Walters, 48, who died in hospital two days after the crash on the M1 near Markfield, Leicestershire, last March. Prosecutors claim the driving test examiner deliberately steered his Mitsubishi L200 off the motorway after his wife said she wanted a divorce and made allegations of domestic abuse. A jury of nine women and three men was told on Wednesday that Walters, of Swindon, Wiltshire, was returning home with his wife from a “make-or-break” week away in North Yorkshire that ended in an argument. Several witnesses described how passing motorists went to help the couple, who were trapped in the wreckage of the vehicle. The first, Robin Goss, 39, told jurors the driver of the pick-up appeared to have made a “conscious, deliberate” decision to steer towards the hard shoulder. Goss said he was up to 150 metres behind the L200 and travelling at about 70mph in the inside lane. He said: “Everything was normal. Then all of a sudden I saw this car just swerve violently across to the left. “It completely disappeared and I remember looking into the hard shoulder. Then I saw what looked like a little explosion. “Bits of tree and bits of plastic came out in front of me. When I saw the dogs, I started to put together what had happened.” Gary Donald, who was driving on the southbound carriageway, told the court he saw the pick-up veer sharply from right to left – performing “almost a straight turn” – and move towards a row of trees. He said: “The canopy of all the trees shook – I would use the word ‘imploded’ – and there was luggage, bits of car, and parts of tree flying into the air.” Under questioning from the defence QC, Christopher Millington, Donald agreed that time-lapse CCTV footage of the L200 showed a “rather less dramatic” veer than he had described. Steven Prince, a passenger in a Range Rover that stopped at the scene, told how he attempted to reassure Tracy Walters before she was cut free. Giving his recollection on the aftermath of the crash, he told the jury he did not witness the moment of impact, but had seen a cloud of dust. Prince said: “I looked left and I saw two dogs out where they shouldn’t be and I saw the car that was already in the tree. “The car was a hell of a mess. I didn’t bother looking at the driver’s side because I thought whoever was in there was going to be squashed.” The court heard he got out of his mother’s car and made his way to the passenger side of the vehicle, where he saw a hand sticking out of the wreckage and wrongly thought it was a child’s severed arm. Prince added: “I made my way through the thicket and it wasn’t a kid, it was a lady. She was in the front seat, but it had been pushed to the back. “She said she was dying. I told her she would be all right and that I wasn’t going anywhere, just to calm her down and make her feel at ease as much as I could.” The prosecutor, Charles Miskin QC, asked Prince if Tracy Walters had said anything else. He replied: “No, other than that she couldn’t breathe. She kept on telling me that and she kept on saying that she was dying.” The trial, which could last for up to a month, was adjourned until next week. |