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A “devoted” expecting mom-of-a few – who vanished without trace 20 several years ago – was murdered by her spouse, a court docket has listened to.
The physique of Debbie Griggs, 34, from Deal in Kent has never ever been located.
Prosecutors assert Andrew Griggs, who is on trial at Canterbury Crown Court docket billed with murder, disposed of her and dumped her motor vehicle.
They advised the jury it adopted suspicions he experienced been acquiring a marriage with a 15-calendar year-old lady.
Griggs, 57, denies the rates from him.
Opening the circumstance, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC claimed Mrs Griggs “did not just up and leave her spouse and little ones in the middle of the evening, under no circumstances to be found or listened to of once more”.
She “would not have just deserted her children” – he mentioned – and claimed the proof details to her death currently being the final result of “foul enjoy”.
“The evidence relating to her motor vehicle, each the sighting of it, the ailment of it and the science from it, all guidance the rivalry that her system experienced been disposed of and car dumped.”
Mr Atkinson argued that the defendant was the man or woman with “the most explanation” to would like his spouse vanish, amid suspicions of him getting an affair with a teenage woman, as nicely as for small business reasons.
He told the courtroom: “Andrew Griggs furthermore experienced not only the possibility, on the proof, to have killed and hid the physique of his spouse, but his behaviour and his lack of regularity all place to him being the killer.
“The prosecution thus alleges that this defendant, Andrew Griggs, killed his wife and it is for that motive that he is consequently billed with her murder.”
The jury was advised the pair ran a freezer business enterprise alongside one another at the time she disappeared – and that on 2 March 1999, just days before she vanished, the defendant established up a new account for the company, just in his name.
“Andrew Griggs experienced then closed the joint business account, a method that was finished on May well 6, 1999, the working day after Debbie Griggs disappeared,” Mr Atkinson said.
The jury were read through extracts from an affidavit that Mrs Griggs wrote that calendar year, describing problems in her connection.
In it, she claimed: “All the things we have together is in truth his, and I am only allowed to love nearly anything that is a joint matrimonial asset by purpose of getting with him.
“He does not permit me go out by myself. His requirements come initially. He tells me I am ill and mad in the head.”
Mrs Griggs explained an incident in which her partner kneed her in the belly, irrespective of realizing that she was expecting.
The trial carries on.