Howell ‘put live cable in wife’s bath’

The revelation was made at the third day of the the trial of Hazel Stewart (47), who is accused of the murder of her husband, Trevor Buchanan and Mrs Howell.

Margaret Topping told the jury how her close friend told her how Howell dropped the cable into the bath water and she suffered an electrical shock, but she said she was all right.

Mrs topping said: “she told me almost laughing. She said it was so awful he could not have meant it. But she told me so that I would know.”

Police, she said, were later told about what happened in the bathroom, as well as two other issues which Mrs topping said had raised her suspicions after Mrs Howell was found dead in a car.

She said Mrs Howell told her that her husband had been administering drugs to her. Mrs Howell also said he would not be getting any money she had inherited from her father’s

will because she feared his dental practice was in financial diffculties, the court was told.

Mrs Howell, 31, a mother of four, and Constable trevor Buchanan, 32, the husband of Howell’s then lover Hazel stewart were found dead in a car in Castlerock, Co Londonderry, in May 1991. At the time it was thought they died as a result of a suicide pact, but Howell was jailed for 21 years last december after he admitted murdering the pair by gassing them with

carbon monoxide fumes.

He later claimed that stewart, 47, of Ballystrone Road, Coleraine, helped him, but she pleaded not guilty to murder. On the third day of her trial yesterday, the jury of nine men

and three women heard about Mrs Howell’s distress over her husband’s affair and how she was prepared to renew her marriage vows once she could begin to trust her cheating

husband. Mrs topping told the court: “she was very sad, embarrassed and very hurt and kept asking, ‘Why was I not number one?’. Lesley was distraught for the family and her children,

ecause she still loved Colin.” She added: “On one occasion she said to me, ‘When this is over and I can trust him again, I want to renew our vows and make a fresh start’.”

Mr Justice Anthony Hart and the jury also heard claims that Howell and his lover spent a weekend together in Bangor, Co down.

Howell later told his wife that he was sorry about the affair, and it would never happen again.

Mrs Topping said she met Mrs Howell once at a leisure centre in Coleraine. They were attending an aerobics class. She told the jury: “Lesley looked listless, but said she was fine. Colin had been giving her some tablets and she would be all right. He was looking after her.”

Earlier Mrs Topping’s husband told the court he was astonished to learn that Howell continued the affair after the deaths of his wife and Constable Buchanan, and made his

feelings known in a letter he wrote to Howell.

The trial continues.