`It was not me'

From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Friday 4th Jul 2003.

WILLIAMS TRIAL: COMPUTER entrepreneur Randle Williams admitted telling lies to detectives in interviews following his wife's death but denied playing any part in the killing.

Williams, 43, repeatedly broke down in the witness box as he told the jury how he lied about going into a Warminster supermarket on the day after reporting 33-year-old Natalie missing.

A receipt for Ariel washing powder and refuse sacks were found with his fingerprints on in the foot well of a Vauxhall Astra he hired from Bath.

In interviews Williams told detectives he was "definitely not" in Warminster on April 23, 2002 but on the witness stand he confessed he was lying to cover up an embarrassing accident.

He said: "I had an accident in the car.

"When Natalie goes missing I get very nervous and I have a problem with my bowels.

"I went to Somerfield and I purchased a pack of washing powder and some binbags.

"I lied about being in Warminster because I felt embarrassed."

Williams said he went to Biss Bottom ­ a lay-by he said he once slept in when Natalie went on a drunken and violent rampage and a beauty spot where he said they once made love ­ because he wanted to change his underwear.

The computer boss said he had no explanation as to why police found his clothes and trainers in the lay-by but said the Marks and Spencer swimming shorts were "definitely not" his.

Prosecutor Mark Evans QC said the likelihood of a mystery person choosing Biss Bottom as a place to dump Williams' clothes was like putting "a pin in a map." He said: "This person has obtained your shoes, waste bags from inside your house, your boxer shorts, your socks, your trainers, your swimming shorts.

"This person has deposited these items, taken from under the nose of police, in Biss Bottom and it is pure coincidence that in the course of the next few days you visit Biss Bottom on three occasions?"

Williams, whose voice faltered when he described his volatile relationship with Natalie, said he put together a makeshift suicide pack including a hosepipe, pack of paracetamol tablets and a knife in the days after his wife's death, to commit suicide in the Isle of Wight hotel where the couple spent their honeymoon in 1997.

He said: "It was a multi purpose suicide kit you might say. My intention was to take my life."

Williams, who is accused of trying to cash in on a £665,000 Norwich Union life insurance policy after his wife's death, said he knew 33-year-old Natalie had been declined and brushed off suggestions of impending financial disaster. The computer boss said financial problems with the completion of a £525,000 converted barn in Whitchurch, which was set for the day Natalie died, were not insolvable.

Describing the barn as their "dream home" and revealing how they wanted to start a family, he said: "I was playing it very close to my chest."

Williams is accused of strangling his wife Natalie and dumping her body in the River Avon near their Greenland Mills home. Williams denies murder.

The trial continues.

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